Blackest Spells

by Phipps, C. T.

  “Don’t let go,” Nathanael said, voice small and shaking.

  “Trying, kid.” Hyman skidded forward and Nathanael dipped. He saw two ways out of this: drop with the boy, or release him. He thought of Hyrian crying as he left her hugging her mother’s leg. What would she think when he didn’t come home? That he broke his promise. Hyman’s fingers relaxed. “Sorry.”

  Nathanael let out a chocked cry and closed his eyes.

  Hold him, the voice whispered. Pull him back.

  A renewed vigor washed away the ache in his arms and Hyman gripped the edge of the precipice, shoving as hard as he could, screaming with the effort. Rock crumbled in his hand, but he moved backwards and Nathanael came up with him. Hyman’s arm had grown numb, but he grunted and drove his palm into the rock and each shove brought Nathanael closer until the boy was lifted clear of the drop, pulling himself up the rest of the way.

  Cheers accompanied the success and more men began to clamber over the side and they lay around like drowned worms, groaning and laughing hysterically. The rain had slowed.

  “Look, Hyman,” Nathanael pointed at the sky. “The sun is coming out.”

  “It cannot stay dark forever,” Hyman said, closing his eyes and letting the warm rays shine golden through his eyelids. The voice had saved him, helped him save the boy. “Creator smile on us, we walk in His light.”

  Hyman slept and dreamt of being next to Glorian wrapped up naked in their fur blanket. He was shivering because she always stole it away from him, curled inside except for one bare shoulder poking out. Hyman reached for her, but his hand shook too much. When he woke, his teeth were chattering.

  “Get up!” Frey nudged him with his bare toe. Where were his boots? Frey’s tunic and breeches clung to his body, like he had gone swimming. Realization that they almost had all gone for one last swim set in and the rock became uncomfortable. “We need to find cover before night and get a fire started. Else we freeze to death.”

  Hyman rubbed the sleep from his eyes. His body hurt, like he had been stretched and stomped on repeatedly. Bare feet pattered on the cold, wet stone around him

  “How are the others?” He cracked his neck.

  “We are only ten, but a small number will be easier to move past the Singers and their Sympathizers,” Frey said, helping Hyman up. “Most of us are good to walk many leagues, though Gillard sliced the soles of his feet on the climb.”

  Hyman saw Gillard, a small man, dark featured and built like a wine cask, leaning against two other men. Each step Gillard winced and Hyman let out a sigh. They would have to find somewhere sheltered to leave Gillard.

  “He’ll slow us down,” Frey said, though the meaning beneath was clear.

  Hyman shook his head. Carrying the man would be an annoyance, but better to be slow and careful than dead.

  “Been more merciful if he’d died in the water.” Frey laughed. “We could always toss him over and end his misery.”

  Hyman snarled and grabbed Frey by his wet tunic.

  “Don’t ever say that,” he said, leaning in close enough to bite the man’s lip.

  Frey swept his arms down, disengaging Hyman, and took a step back.

  “Just a jest.” Frey held up his hands. “If we can’t laugh in the death’s face, when can we?”

  “Save your effort for walking or else it’s death who laughs at us.”

  Hyman walked past, slamming his shoulder in Frey as he began the long march from the barren cliffside. He could feel the man’s eyes burning into his back. Frey had no family as far as Hyman knew, which meant he could be reckless. Reckless men tended to be dangerous to their companions.

  Break his neck before he keeps me from seeing my home.

  The rain had turned the dirt into mud. Mud that stuck between his toes, a sensation he usually hated, much like stepping barefoot in dog shit, but the mud soothed the cuts his feet had suffered on the climb. They’d have to bind their feet before they reached drier parts full of stone and hidden debris.

  Nathanael slogged up to him. Hyman wanted to tell the kid to get the fuck away. Especially since he didn’t want to see the look on his face when Nathanael confronted him about nearly letting him go.

  “Do you think those men were left to die by the singers?”

  That wasn’t the question Hyman expected.

  “They were already dead,” Hyman said. “Basically, scarecrows set up around the camp fires.” The scouts saw Robin walking among them and that was enough to make them shit bricks, hauling tail back to the outpost. Lucky they were part of the dead, or Hyman would have ended them for their impetuous stupidity.

  “We almost died to kill dead men.” Anger made Nathanael’s voice crack.

  “Seems as though we killed those men once,” Hyman said. “It wasn’t about them. It was to capture the woman, Robin. It was her song that has dogged us to the very ends with rain, snow, and blazing heat. She was worth the sacrifice of twenty thousand to save hundreds of thousands.”

  “But we failed.”

  “That’s what happens in war,” Hyman said. “Evil people don’t play by the rules.”

  “I’m going to join up with our eastern brothers,” Nathanael said. “They need to know about what happened.”

  They know. Hyman nodded. This is our chance of getting out of a war we cannot win. As long as the shadow has those women to do his bidding, we’ll always lose.

  Hyman had been fighting this battle for close to a decade and it has gone on much longer. When he was a boy, his father died in a flood caused by Robin. That was one bird Hyman swore to hunt and kill. Revenge burned hot in him, and he signed up for every mission attacking those women, escaping death more times than he wanted to count. He was prepared to give up everything, until he met Glorian. She was a seamstress working with her father and mother, both serving in the Silent Men army, as tanner and cook. Hyman remembered seeing her in the golden light on a scorching hot day, when the plantings had to be delayed because the sowing rains never came—caused by Robin and her Nazglum whores.

  Glorian glanced at him from hemming a hole in a pair of black breeches. Hyman had a pair of his own that had a tear up the left side from a fall down a rocky hillside. He also had a pair of broken ribs and a bent nose. Not that he ever counted himself handsome, but then he felt hideous.

  “Tavern brawl?” Glorian asked and motioned for him to put his breeches in a pile.

  “No,” Hyman said, a little annoyed. Rarely did the Silent Men engage in direct combat, unless brawling in the streets or smashing up the Leaky Bucket was their idea of a fight. He had been in two dozen battles, squared off against the Singers in at least half of those, if not more. Was part of the team to kill the one called Finch, a beautiful young woman who used her song to seduce men and break their hearts, literally. She died hard, taking hundreds of lives with her. He told her this story.

  “Oh,” Glorian said, her cheeks turning read. “I’m sorry to judge you so quickly.”

  “And harshly,” Hyman said. “That means you are either my mother or my wife.”

  “Neither,” Glorian retorted. “I have turned down the advances of men cleverer than you.”

  “Probably more handsome, too.”

  She laughed. A pretty sound that made him think of a breeze rustling leaves in the sowing, rather than the blood and death constantly darkening his moods.

  “You said it, not me.” She set her sewing down. “Besides, my father has a hole dug behind his shop.”

  “For what?”

  She shrugged. “Just because.”

  “Is it deep?”

  “Very deep.”

  “It would have to be, because I’m an expert climber.” Hyman took a seat in the chair across from her. “There was this tree taller, tallest thing I ever saw. Taller than a mountain, or, at least the mountains in my mind. At the top of the tree, on the branch furthest from the ground, grew a flower. I was a young boy and I liked this pretty girl. She promised me a kiss if I would climb the tree and get
her the flower.”

  “Seems an awful lot of work for a simple kiss,” Glorian said.

  “You don’t know the half of it,” Hyman said.

  “Go on.” She moved closer to Hyman, eyes bright at the prospect of a good story.

  “I began to climb this tree, moving from branch to branch like some squirrel after a nut, when I come across a gap between the branches. No matter how high I reached, I couldn’t touch it. Down below, looking like a tiny ant on the ground was the girl. Her arms were folded and she shook her head in a way to say I had lost. So, I screwed up my courage and bent my legs. I leapt as high as I could, my fingers barely catching hold of the branch. I though for certain I would lose my grip and fall at any moment, but I held on. My eye still on the flower. I shimmied across the branch and plucked the flower. I forgot one important thing.”

  “How to get down?”

  “Yes! Much easier putting yourself at risk going up, but the getting down part is always much harder. I put the flower in my mouth and shuffled my hands slowly back to the tree trunk. I knew I couldn’t drop, since I chanced missing the branch directly below and break my neck before I got that kiss.”

  He thought Glorian would roll her eyes at that, but she watched him, leaning in.

  “I hugged the tree trunk. Like a worm, I inched my way closer to the branch. The trunk got too wide to hold onto and my limbs were slick with sweat. I felt myself begin to slip.”

  “What did you do?”

  “I positioned myself over the branch and let go.”

  “Weren’t you scared?”

  “Terrified, but I was bound to fall either way, so I made the choice to do it on my terms. Luckily, I did, because I hit the branch and had enough strength to hold on rather than bounce off. When I got to the bottom, I found the girl waiting. I was about to get my kiss but her father caught me by the scruff and tossed me down an old well. Took me better part of a day to climb out of there as well.”

  “I don’t believe you.” Glorian sat up straight, arms crossed. “You’re some story singer, making up tales to impress a girl.”

  “I wish I was,” Hyman said. From his pouch he took out an old handkerchief and handed it to Glorian.

  Glorian unwrapped it and made a small noise of surprise. In the brown handkerchief was the perfectly pressed white flower. She tried to give it back, but he refused it.

  “I never got that kiss from her,” he said.

  Glorian laughed and Hyman was about to leave, having embarrassed himself enough.

  “Wait!” She put a hand on his arm. Before he could ask what she wanted, her lips were pressed against his.

  “What if I did make it all up?” he asked when he caught breath.

  “Does it matter?” Glorian replied. “You’re going to have other ways to prove your story. Just keep climbing and coming back to me.”

  Hyman had promised and, so far, kept that promise.

  The sun was setting and a chill settled over them. They had scurried down the muddy ridge, a silent band of refugees escaping the slaughter. The men took turns supporting Gilliard as he hopped along on his torn feet, but they would grow tired, especially when the wounds began to seep pus and black vines crept up his legs. Hyman had seen it happen too often. Nathanael stuck close to Hyman while Frey walked off to the edge of the group, scrapping a rock against another and fashioning a primitive knife.

  “Wish I knew how to kill one of them singers,” Nathanael said, breaking the silence.

  “They’re women,” Hyman said. “Stick a blade in ‘em and they bleed just the same as anyone else. The problem lies in getting close enough to one without getting turned inside-out by their song.”

  “Didn’t you kill one?” Eagerness raised the pitch of his voice, nearing the edge of excitement. He knew Hyman was part of the group of Silent Men to kill Finch. Everyone knew the ten men who had survived that expedition. Frey was there as well. Frey did things to Finch that turned Hyman’s stomach, things no one spoke about afterwards. Nathanael was like all fresh recruits—he wanted to hear the glory stories while dreaming about making a name for himself.

  “I was there,” Hyman said, hoping to put off further inquiry.

  “What was it like?”

  Hyman shrugged. “Killing is killing. Messy business no matter if it’s a man, woman, or child.”

  “Don’t lie to the boy,” Frey said. He had crept closer and gave a nasty grin. “Killing a Singer is like your first time fucking a woman. Satisfying, but over too soon. You always crave more, sniff out her blood like a hound sniffs a bitch in heat. Sometimes she bites back, but it doesn’t stop you from hunting her down and wanting to bend—”

  “That’s enough,” Hyman said. He glared at Frey who grinned even wider, revealing his yellowed teeth.

  “Some men just aren’t into women as much as others,” Frey said and drifted back off to the side of the path.

  Hyman thought about telling Nathanael that Frey was wrong, but that would be a lie. Killing a servant of Nazglum had a profound effect on a man. Made him feel closer to the Creator for doing the Creator’s work of cleansing the land of such dark perversion. Though, Hyman preferred the death to be subtler, a slit throat like a sacrifice. He hated how Frey defiled the poor woman and how he stood back and allowed him to do it. Had he a chance to do it over, he would kill the woman before Frey got his hands on her.

  “Sometimes the horror of it all makes you numb,” Hyman once explained to Glorian while he was on his third cup of sour wine. “When one more shovel-full of shit comes your way, well, you were glad it wasn’t dumped on you.” He wanted to tell this to Nathanael, but the boy was lost in thought, staring off into the distance, and Hyman was too tired for more words.

  They made camp in a grove of starfruit. Half of the men plucked the red fruit from the trees while the rest sought out dry brush and wood to burn. Hyman gathered fallen branches big enough to make several lean-tos. His body ached, muscles protesting as he wound the vines around each branch. After the camp was set and fires burned, Hyman stripped out of his wet clothes. He sat in his small clothes by a fire, chewing on starfruit. It wasn’t entirely ripe, but hunger demanded his empty stomach be filled.

  Eat too much and I’ll waste time shitting my guts out on the side of the road instead of marching home. He tossed the pink core with seeds shaped like stars into the fire. It sizzled and caught the flames. He watched drowsily while it turned to ash.

  Nathanael came, holding his tunic curled up like he was smuggling something.

  “I found these over by the tree,” he said, and unfurled his tunic. A dozen whitecapped mushrooms rolled out into his lap. “My mother used to cook these during the sowing.”

  “I doubt it,” Hymen said, tossing the remains of the core of his fruit into the woods.

  “She did. I used to help gather them when I was little. ‘Snow on top, a good crop,’ she would say.” Nathanael picked one up and examined it in the fire’s light. “‘Grey under the cap, will make you crap and die.’ This one’s black.”

  “I wouldn’t eat it.”

  “Your loss.” He started to put one in his mouth and Hyman knocked it out of his hand. Nathanael glared at him. “What the fuck did you do that for?”

  “Saving your life.” Hyman pointed at the rest in the boy’s lap. “Those are called Death’s Hood. Rub one of the tops and you’ll see.”

  Nathanael ran a thumb over the mushroom cap. The white whipped away like a film, revealing the black crown. He jumped up, spilling the mushrooms out onto the ground and tossing the one in his hand like it had tried to bite him.

  “How’d you know?”

  “You see all sorts of crazy shit, like the time a man tried to eat one and his eyes grew big, empty as though he stared Death in the face, and he began to vomit out his guts. He was dead in less than a few breaths,” Hyman said. “Can’t trust anything out here in the wilds. Oh, ah, I would find something to wash my hands off, because that stuff can still get in you and cause you all
kinds of hurt.”

  Nathanael ran off and Hyman chuckled. The boy would be dead in less than a moon if he wasn’t here to watch over him. He could hear moaning from one of the lean-tos. Gilliard’s back was to him, but Hyman could read the pain in the way his shoulders hunched and his head lay back like Gilliard wanted to scream at the moon. He’d seen men in worse pain in the exact same pose before their leg or foot was amputated. Crouched to the side of Gillard was Amyl, an herbalist, and married to Gillard’s sister, Persimona. Amyl held Gillard’s hand and said some words of comfort. Then he patted Gillard’s face, giving a smile reserved for the grievously-ill, to keep their spirits up—Hyman had seen it too often in camp, and knew who would die hard by the kinds of herbs given to a man.

  “Doesn’t look good,” Amyl said, approaching Hyman. He was dressed in his small clothes as well and raised goose flesh covered his skin. Hyman let Amyl talk. Listening was the best way to comfort a man. “The skin is cut too deep. I can’t find any sphagnum moss to preserve the wounds and he’s already got an infection. All these fucking trees and not one patch of moss, it’s like the shadow knew we would be coming and tore it all down.”

  “What can be done?”

  Amyl rubbed the back of his neck and then shook his head.

  “Soon, we’ll have to take his feet to keep it from spreading up his legs.”

  The unspoken problem hung before them. The feet had to come off, but they had no way to do it with Gillard bleeding out.

  “Keep him comfortable,” Hyman said. “We leave at first light.”

  “Maybe I’ll find something on the way,” Amyl said.

  “If he can walk,” Hyman said.

  “He’ll walk,” Amyl said. “I’ll wrap his feet and let him use me as his crutch. Else ‘Mona will leave me to rot outside.”

  They shared a chuckle and Amyl wandered off.

  “Try to sleep,” Hyman shouted after him.

  Amyl waved away his concern. The man would hunt for his herbs until he dropped in the middle of the grove. Hyman got up to check on the rest of his people. They were all huddled close to their fires, chewing on starfruit. He talked to them, offering encouraging words. Most were used to sleeping outside in the cold. Nothing new for seasoned veterans. He avoided Gillard, letting the man sleep. Only one he didn’t see was Frey. Knowing him, he probably set up first watch. As much as Hyman disliked the man, Frey never shirked his duties as a soldier. Hyman chose another to stay up and watch for Frey, to wake Hyman when Frey returned. Then he returned to his own lean-to, discovering Nathanael fast asleep.