by Jeffrey Hall
Requiem spun, attempting to keep each of the creatures at bay, all the while his neck and back screaming, telling him to stop fighting and nurse his self-inflicted wounds. A familiar pain. One he had spent an entire lifetime working to quiet. One that he kept telling himself wouldn’t matter once he rid the world of these beasts and saved the fool who’d wandered into their territory.
He heard the click of the cultists’ claws between their leader’s chant, and turned just as one leapt.
He could not bring up his sword in time and met the creature with his forearm, jamming it into its neck to prevent its jaws from chomping down on his head.
Spittle splattered on his face. The thing’s hot, fetid breath gusted against him as it bit and snarled.
He tried to bring his sword up, but the weight of the creature was too much.
Adrenaline surged through his body, the kind that only came in the arms of death. For a moment, he thought he might let the cultist devour him, but quickly removed the idea from his panicked head.
He had already chosen how he would go, and it wasn’t going to be to the fangs of some Abyss-worshipping demon.
The scar stone responded as he called to it through his mind. His entire body seized from the magical surge that ran through him, causing the countless scars that ran over his skin to remind him of the pain he’d suffered when he’d obtained them.
He pushed the creature away, sending it flailing into the air just as the rest of its comrades descended upon him.
He yelled out, because of agonizing burn of his scars, because of the energy coursing through his muscles with nowhere else to go save through the use of his vocal cords, until he swung out with his blade.
He swung so fast and strong that he severed two of the creatures’ legs before they could jump away.
Their feet and ankles were swept from their bodies like debris in a storm.
What remained of the electricity raging on his blade jumped up the rest of their bodies.
They crumpled, writhing on the ground, their barks turning to mewls until nothing came from them except for the pops and sizzle of their bodies.
Requiem was back on his feet, his old, broken body pounding like an instrument played by the gods.
The last of the four cultists scurried over to grab its weapon, yipping like a scolded dog.
“Gula…” shouted their leader once again but then no more. A whisper now, not a chant.
Requiem approached the cultist just as it grabbed its blade. It raised the crooked sword into the air to meet him. He brought down Ruse, the strength of the scar stone still pulsating through him, and shattered the cultist’s weapon as the tip of his sword passed through the creature’s neck, partially severing it.
It fell to the ground, its head dangling to make it look like the appendage of some new monster altogether.
He watched the dying thing as it settled into place, the roaring of the scars on his own body finally starting to cool as the temporary magic left him and his blade. When the pain dulled he exhaled as if his breath were the exhaust of some machine under duress.
Only the minute yips and struggling grunts of the Dread Cult leader turned his attention.
The beast had two hands on the wood of the crucifix and was attempting to drag it over the edge and cast it into the Abyss.
Still trying to satisfy its god even with its life a few moments from ending.
It was a good idea, Requiem thought. Best to gain as much favor as it could before he sent the thing to meet its deity. If there was even such a thing to meet it.
Requiem, despite all his journeys and suffering, wasn’t sure.
He dragged his sword along the ground as he walked over to the cultist leader, leaving a red trail of blood in the dirt, stroke-like, an artist’s work. The remaining cultist saw him coming and hissed at him, yanking the crucifix and the still body attached to it so close to the edge that the drugged fool’s head dangled over into the Abyss.
One more pull and the wooden cross teetered, threatening to beat Requiem into the Abyss.
“Stop!” he ordered the cultist.
The thing’s headdress fell off as it snapped its head upright to look at him. It dropped the crucifix, and from the weight of the wood and the body, the thing started to slide.
Requiem took three giant steps forward and cut down in the air with his sword, sending a burst of energy at the cultist. It struck the cultist like a fierce wind. The cultist lost his footing and toppled over the edge, crying out, reaching with his claws as he fell. A second later and the colorful gas of the Abyss swallowed him like a grotesque, formless monster.
Requiem tossed his blade aside and dove for the end of the crucifix just as the scar stone took its share and he felt new pain blossom on his neck.
He grunted and cursed.
The weight of the wood and the body added to the new wound nearly allowed the crucifix to go over.
But he dug his fingernails into the old rotted wood and strained his taxed muscles and stopped it from going any further.
It dangled over the edge like some giant piece of bait for the Abyss to jump up and snag.
Let it go. What does it matter? You’ll soon be joining them.
But that same stubbornness that kept him from letting himself fall only minutes ago kept him from letting the cross loose.
He glanced over and saw his sword lying on the ground, face up so the red visage of the scar stone could stare back at him like the eye of a judge whose verdict would never be understood.
Requiem spit at it. He dug his feet into the shale and stone, gritted his teeth, and pulled from some hidden reserve of strength that was his own, and belonged to no stone or magic.
Sweat accumulated at his brow. His lungs burned and his legs—things already tired from their long years of traveling and standing to fight—shook. But slowly he worked the wood back over the side, gathering it inch by inch, daring each hand to leave the crucifix’s surface momentarily to eke it back into safety.
By the time he had retrieved a foot-length of it he leaned back, and with the help of his weight, he brought the attached victim back onto land.
He lay there, sucking in air, letting the sweat drizzle down him and form pools upon his worn attire and beaten armor. His entire body hurt, begging for him to stop, pleading with him to pick up Ruse, which was inches away, still staring at him.
He obeyed, like he always did, and grabbed the sword that held the scar stone, and the pain went away. We’ll be rid of each other soon enough, he told it.
But first he needed to save the fool who’d put himself in the clutches of the cultists in the first place and set him back on his way, to continue living, disrupting this corrupt place with his idiocy for hopefully years to come.
He came to his feet and sauntered over to the crucifix. Now that he was close enough he could see the body tied to it was tiny. It wore a tattered brown vest over a dirt-stained shirt. A set of three pouches hung from its belt, each bloated and cinched tight. But most curious of all was its feet.
They were bare, small, and so bruised and calloused he wondered if the victim had walked all of Moonsland to arrive to that patch of the Edge.
He looked at the white hood hurriedly put over its head and the locks of dark hair snaking out from its opening like black digits reaching out for him.
He knelt, his hands shaking as he reached and removed the hood.
He stood up and swore so loudly that it echoed off the nearby stones.
Below him was a little girl.
Chapter 2
Her face matched her shirt, dirty and worn. Her cheekbones pressed to her skin like curious observers attempting to find a way out of her in order to understand why she did not nourish herself enough and keep them hidden. She had wide, round ears and a dried cut that ran from her forehead, between her eyes, and over the bridge of her nose.
All the makings of a good scar. A thing too cruel to be on a face so young.
She was so still, s
o frail looking that Requiem thought the cultists might have killed her before they were able to offer her up to the Abyss.
He put his finger to her upper lip, felt her hot breath against skin, and swore again. Of course he couldn’t be so lucky.
“Wake up.” He tapped her face. “Wake up!” He yelled so loudly that the glimmerbacks fled from their nests upon the side of the Edge. But the girl didn’t move.
He swore again, and started pacing.
This was his luck. Always had been. Always would be. Just when he thought he knew where he was going the world would throw a wall up in his way and he’d question where to put his foot down next.
He chewed his lip as he looked over the Edge. A purple cloud of the Abyss formed like a fist in the sky, one set to urge him onward, which way, he could not say.
This girl was his problem now, but she didn’t have to be. All he needed to do was go on with his plan, and the girl and this world would no longer be his problem to bear.
He looked back into the Abyss. The fist of clouds had unfolded, once again letting in pricks of sunlight that shattered within the gaseous gaps, making them look like eyes. Blue ones, then black.
Familiar eyes. Eyes that had haunted him his entire life. Eyes that continued to haunt him even as he thought about ending it.
The cloud settled, perhaps stuck in some struggle of the wind, and made those eyes stay. Made them stare. Made them feel as if they too were judges, just like the scar stone, and were wondering what he would do next.
“What?” he said to the ghastly apparitions.
But they only stared.
“What!” he shouted. “Come to see me off, is that it? Come to see what I would do with one last pile of muck to clean up and climb out of?”
The cloud moved slightly, making the eyes blink, but still they stayed.
“Well, to hell with you!” Requiem stormed to the edge and brought forth his sword, ready to finally free himself of its grip on his soul and body, at least until he joined it.
But as he brought the blade overhead he caught a glimpse of himself in its metal.
Two ragged wounds snuck out from the collar of his undershirt from where the scar stone had taken its share. Bloody, and still sealing, they looked like blackened gnarls of hair.
He lowered his sword.
Looking at them closer, he could see how they frayed at the end. Unusual scars. But most unusual of all were their lengths.
His adrenaline dissipating, he could feel their extent. The pain ended at his neck, but the wounds snaked all the way over his collar and down above his left chest.
A place where another scar lurked. The place of his first scar.
He looked down at the girl again and almost laughed at the blatant resemblance between her hair and the shapes that now violently decorated his skin.
He looked down at the scar stone lodged in the sword’s hilt. “To hell with you too.”
The stone just stared back, the swath of Abyss stuck beneath its facets shifting slightly like a trapped storm looking for a way out.
He looked up and the gaseous eyes had grown larger. Dilated. As if they were exhilarated by the lonesome war he was waging within himself. A war he was losing. A war he could never win.
“You too,” he said, at last.
He raised his blade once more, held it over his head, and chopped down.
The girl’s binding cut free.
The fire popped angrily, furious to be called to life by Requiem so close to the Edge where it could not burn in peace thanks to the unabated wind. The girl lay next to it, awash in its light and warmth, a futile effort to wake her from her drug-induced slumber.
Requiem thoughts were one long line of curses.
He was going to have to carry her. For miles.
The next closest town was Drip, on the other side of the Swollen Mountains. Which meant uphills and jagged territory. A trial for any traveler, let alone one so weathered and weary, let alone one carrying a girl slung over his shoulder.
He should have brought a mount. But how could he have known he would be returning from the Edge? This was supposed to be a one-way trip. He’d been bent on taking his last remaining miles slowly, by foot, so that he might spend additional time with his memories and suffer for his past a little longer.
A horse or a belly-grup would have robbed the world of that.
He should have known he wouldn’t have the stones to go through with it. He should have known that something during his journey would pull him away from his final mission.
He should have known that the world would serve him an excuse at the bitter end, with one toe hanging over the Edge, his eyes gazing into the voracious maw of the Abyss.
She showed up then. Exactly then…
Who was she, this girl? By the Abyss, what was she doing so far away from civilization, so close to the Edge? Surely she must not have come out here alone. Perhaps the cultists ransacked a trade caravan, or dared to come down the mountains and snatch her from Drip, desperate to appease their god. Surely if he brought her back there someone would recognize her. Someone who could point him where to drop her so he could come back and finish what he had set out to do.
All it would take was a couple dozen miles.
Requiem looked at the Swollen Mountains, rising through the darkness like the backs of dozing beasts, waiting to be awoken and break him with their fang-like stones and steep spines.
Damn it, he thought.
Requiem slumped down against a stone, panting, lowering the girl to the ground like an offering to the god of relief before him.
The town of Drip.
It rose around the Twisted Lake like a burning crust, windows of houses and lanterns outlining streets white with glimmer stones, built around the east side of the water’s edge. The lake itself, a turbulent whirlpool formed by the hole at its bottom, slowly poured its contents into the Abyss below and was constantly refilled by the rain runoff from the mountains nearby. Rain that Requiem had encountered plenty of during his miserable hike. Rain he was still wringing out even then, a day after the last downfall.
It had been as bad as expected. Cold. Shale and gravel had slipped beneath his boots and slammed him to the ground, where he took the impact on his chest and chin, unable to catch himself with the girl slung over his shoulders like a pack, falling as to not damage her so he could return her to wherever she belonged mostly whole, and without the need for raised eyebrows when her relations took her in and saw bruises and cuts that weren’t congruent with the work of Dread Cultists.
He’d kept hoping she would wake up. He’d kept looking at her while he rested, willing her to snap from her coma and give his knees and back a break and relieve him of the unwanted onus her motionless body had given him.
But nothing had changed, and he’d been forced to walk the mountain trails like a merchant, his back bloated with an inventory he could not profit from, forcing water down her from his own canteen like she was a plant that needed to grow. He’d tried food. He’d tried to mash it up with his own mouth and put it in hers, but he couldn’t get it to go down. So he’d stopped trying and hoped that the water would be enough and the reduced amount of energy she required in her coma would equate to a satisfied stomach.
There was a time—when the mountain winds lashed them like formless whips and his right knee threatened to give up on him—when he’d thought about calling upon the strength of the scar stone, but he’d ultimately refrained, knowing that the blasted thing was running out of places to get its share from on him.
The scars were at his neck now, and it wouldn’t be long before they overtook his face and he’d be wholly recognizable just by walking into a room. Just like Dorja.
He rubbed his neck as he stared down at the sleepy town.
It took some years, Dorja. But I’m finally catching up to you.
He put up his hood and hoped that they would cover up his new wounds. The last thing he needed was attention.
Attention was no
t something that boded well for the Scarred since Proth.
He lifted the girl over his shoulder and walked the last of the trail into the town of Drip.
Nighttime in Drip was quiet, as he had come to expect from such places.
Only the wind, the crunch of a few others’ boots, and the faint mumble of voices could be heard on the main street. The glimmer stones lodged in the poles along it made the road look ethereal, ghost-like, as if the true road had died during the day and this white-lit version hung near to haunt those who dared to walk it at such a time. The small glimpses he caught of the shore and the lake showed him dagger fish and needlers jumping out of the surface, the denizens of the water so thin and nimble that they could navigate its terrible currents and glean a way of life where most could not.
A lone fisherman stood in the dark, taking advantage of the nighttime activity of the fish. Requiem could see him staring at him, his eyes lit orange and fiery thanks to the short pipe that hung from his mouth.
Requiem knew him even if he didn’t know his name and had never met him. He was a miner, long past the time when he should have had his feet up on his thin mattress, giving his body a chance to heal from the long hours of hacking stone and moving rubble. But what he was doing then was healing a part of him that no amount of rest could.
He was healing his mind.
A thing often tattered and broken thanks to the long, lightless hours a thousand feet below in the tunnels, all in the hunt for the precious metals and stones that were found in the bosom of Moonsland. A thankless dark where not even the moon or the stars were there to keep you company or give you hope at something greater than yourself. A blackness only occupied by your own dark thoughts and those of the other miners who stood beside you in an occupational coffin, hammering, chipping, working the rock like it was a torture victim whose secrets needed to be spilled…
He knew that man because Requiem was once the same type of man before he found the scar stone.