by Scott Hale
There. Vrana twisted around and saw the creature that meant to kill her. It was a man, or at least it had been at one point in its life, and wrapped around its heavily scarred skin were coils of thorns and barbed wire. The Horror of the Lake lumbered through the water, spasms of pain sending its body into grotesque convulsions. Vrana glanced up at the boy, who still showed no signs of movement, and with burning lungs, met the Horror midway in its death charge.
The creature’s claw clamped down on Vrana’s shoulder and dug in deep. She shoved the knife into the Horror’s chest and immediately regretted her decision as the thorns bit at her skin. She pulled away and kicked the Horror back; cried out as the creature’s nails slid down her arm. With warm blood pouring from her wet wounds, she grabbed the Horror of the Lake by the hand and sawed at its wrist, the blade of the dagger cutting through its flesh as though it were paper.
I am not going to drown.
As the Horror wailed and gripped its spewing stump, Vrana looked to the boy and knew she could not claim him until the creature was dead. She threw herself at it, took the blows it threw at her. Its jaw dropped open, and she shoved the knife in, stabbing the back of its throat and cutting open the top of its mouth. She pushed the Horror of the Lake back for the final time, and with its blood swirling around her, she took the boy under her wing and soared frantically toward the sky.
It took some time for the child to clear his lungs of water, and it took even longer for him to become oriented once more. Vrana sat against a rock on the lake’s edge, panting as the wounds from the Horror of the Lake began to darken. What the hell was that thing? She rubbed at the punctures in her skin, a black liquid oozing out with every pass. Poison.
The boy sensed her unease, left for the forest, and then returned shortly thereafter with a bundle of blue flowers. At first, Vrana resisted his offering, but the mounting pain and creeping paralysis broke her will. Her companion chewed the flowers into a paste and rubbed it over her arms and the deeper lacerations on her chest and stomach. The boy had soft hands, unspoiled by hard labor, and they worked Vrana’s wounds with a precision unexpected of a child.
The poison was quick to wane, the blue flowers having run it from Vrana’s system.
Though every impulse told her to do otherwise, she gathered herself, the boy, and their belongings, and by moonlight traveled with him through the hostile land. Perhaps it was due to their weakened state, but it seemed no predator they passed was interested in seeing Vrana and the boy beneath their claws. Even the moon cats turned a blind eye to their stumbling, apparently finding no satisfaction in weakened game.
Vrana had lost all sense of time and direction when they spotted a village and bonfire on the distant horizon. Shadows of shapes stretched across the landscape as figures danced around the crackling inferno. The ground shook from their primal vibrations. She looked at her companion, who was nodding off beside her, and decided this was as good a place as any to leave the Corrupted. There was no great city to take him in; because of the Trauma and her people, the Corrupted were only allowed small villages and towns. She took a quarter of the remaining food for her return to Caldera and set the rest atop the clothes and pillows the boy held.
Together they made their exhausted march toward the village. Vrana kept close to the darkness, too weary to risk another encounter. When they reached the first building, a slanted house crumbling beneath its own weight, Vrana looked down upon the child, the beak of her mask nearly touching the top of his head, and imagined saying goodbye. The boy started to weep once more, and as Vrana went to comfort him, she heard something rustle behind them.
Vrana spun around, rending the air with her ax. The boy grabbed the pouch holding his father’s heart, and she stopped, her own heart dropping into her stomach. An old woman with white braids stood before them, wearing the wild shadows of the blaze like a cloak. She seemed indifferent to the girl with the raven’s head. She smiled toothlessly as she held out her arms to embrace the boy. A maternal sense of protection arose within Vrana, and for a moment, she wanted to care for the child and shield him from the horrors of the world.
“Thank you,” he said as Vrana walked away.
She understood him well enough and could have turned around to carry on the conversation, but she didn’t trust herself to have the strength to end it. Vrana was to be feared by her enemies, to be seen as a harbinger of death, an agent of entropy—not a giver of compassion or life. And yet here she was, a confused young woman wearing a stinking mask and unsightly scars, aiding her foes in the final hours of her eighteenth birthday.
CHAPTER II
Vrana knew that she would not make it to Caldera before the Black Hour began. Although she was almost certain it was days away, she was lost, and the last thing she needed was to stumble into the Nameless Forest. She tried to retrace her steps to the lake, but the darkness that covered the land was thick, and she had no way by which to measure her progress.
The farther Vrana delved into the forest west of the village, the more obvious it became that something was amiss. The trees took on an ancient and harsh texture like petrified corpses. The light of the moon faded, replaced by a glowing mist that rolled over the damp soil. Vrana strained her ears for the sounds of nightlife but found no sounds save for her own.
She should’ve listened to the elders. She should’ve gone home.
Lightning split across the midnight sky, and Vrana jumped, the peal of thunder that followed rattling her bones. Her skin prickled as fat drops of rain fell from above, their weight pulling loose leaves from the branches. Alarmed, Vrana scanned the area for refuge. As the temperature plummeted, her teeth started to chatter. There’s nothing, she thought as she went, upturned roots tugging at her feet. The rain began to fall in sheets. I’m an idiot. Why do I do these things to myself?
A strong wind funneled through the forest, flattening Vrana to the muddy ground. Her body started to sink into the oversaturated soil. She struggled to get free, but every twist of limb and strain of muscle served only to make matters worse. Vrana panicked; she imagined the soil sliding over her, the mud filling her throat. And then, as though her mind had cleared, she found something calming about the entire experience, something unexpectedly enjoyable about being completely vulnerable and at the mercy of a force greater than herself.
She shook the idiocy out of her head, spat the dirt out of her mouth. Her eyes shone with hatred and determination. She formed her hands into claws and pushed forward like a bird taking flight, dislodging herself from the widening pit.
And that’s when she saw it: a ravaged keep like a crumbling crown sitting on the dreary horizon, its walls broken bones jutting from the earth’s waterlogged carcass. Vrana stumbled toward it, her feet sinking into puddles and pools as the glowing mist climbed around her, its vapory tendrils like the legs of a formless spider. The mask kept her head dry enough, but the rest of her body was quickly becoming a breeding ground for sickness. She wrapped her arms around herself and made a desperate sprint for the keep.
Vrana clambered over the piles of rubble that had served the building so well, keeping watch as she climbed for other stragglers caught in the storm. With the front doors being too obvious an entrance, she found a hole in the keep’s walls and pushed through, bits of foundation cascading around her as she went.
A great hall filled with debris and detritus awaited her as she shimmied out of the hole. In the center of the hall, where the floor had buckled, a small pond sat, stone and wood from the ceiling clogging its surface. The banners, massive curtains, and gold-framed portraits that lined the walls appeared as though they were melting beneath the streams of water that poured down on them. Sensing that she would not find warmth or relief here, Vrana followed a hallway half-hidden by an upright table.
After passing through various ransacked rooms, a kitchen covered in charred bones, and a library where most of the book covers and spines were stained with dried blood, Vrana happened upon a small study untouched by water and t
hievery. Much like the Corrupteds’ home, clothing and blankets were piled high upon one another; without consideration, she fell into them, her shivering body begging for heat. It was there she lay for a moment, too exhausted to chastise herself for helping the child.
“I’ll wait until morning,” she slurred, pangs of hunger guiding her hands to the pouch that held her food from Caldera. She slid the ax close to her beak, and then she pushed a piece of bread through her lips. “I’ll wait it out.”
The teeth of winter sank into her neck. Vrana’s eyes snapped open. Terror tore through her gut as she found herself on the edge of an icy chasm. I’m dreaming, she thought, looking between the snowcapped peaks of the surrounding mountains. She came to her feet, shuddering as pellets of hail pelted the area, and scanned the frozen expanse for an escape. What’s that?
On a withered bluff smothered in fog, her first victim stood, snow gathering in his heartless hole. At the man’s feet, the little boy sat, fingers clinging to the fabric of his father’s pants. At first, they didn’t see Vrana, but when they did, they began to speak to one another. Sweat poured down her face as an impossible heat washed over her.
“Wake up,” she commanded, the ground beneath her trembling, the crag before her filling with the sounds of clapping hooves. “Wake up, wake up,” she begged as black fire poured in melting waves over the mountain range. “Wake…”
She rolled over, short of breath and full of pain, but awake and alive. The cuts and lacerations along her arms and chest were seething, and she had more bruises than she could count. She slowly peeled the bandages from her back, the cloth sticky from clotting, and sighed. At this rate, she would be in pieces by the night’s end.
Vrana stood up, stumbled. Using her ax for support, she hobbled toward the doorway, the stone floor far less comfortable than it’d been a few minutes ago. This place is big enough, she thought. There has to be more …
The sound of laughter echoed through the hall. Her heart seized in her chest. It was an insane laughter, hearty and deep, thickened by madness and a lust for blood. The remnants of sleep slid off her body as she lifted her ax and leaned into the corridor. Screaming came next, a guttural, spit-choked cry for release born from gnawing agony. Vrana crouched low and followed the terrible chorus through the winding passage.
The keep shook at the sky’s thunderous bellows, rain spewing through its cracked façade as Vrana stalked the lightning-lit halls. She slipped through narrow paths and under fallen support beams, stepped over dried corpses in rusted suits of armor, and crept through beds of shattered glass, until the floor fell away to a pit from which the grotesque sounds emerged. Vrana stood there for a moment, listening to the sharpening of blades, and then she descended the rope ladder that led into the butcher’s den, not entirely sure what she expected to find or why she wanted to find it at all.
Her feet landed softly on the floor of the pit. Using the gasps and moans to mask her movement, she went towards the winking lights at the back of the cavity. It took her eyes a moment to adjust to the darkness, but Vrana found the source of the sorrow soon enough: an altar of wood and rock upon which a nude man lay, his arms and legs splayed and bound to the pillars on each side of the rickety dais. Over him a robed figure loomed, tugging on tendons and veins and prodding the man’s exposed organs with unflinching indifference.
Vrana winced as the figure lifted its head to greet her. It was faceless, featureless—all bone and no flesh—the skull atop its spine a house for the hardened eyes that stared at the Raven, unblinking. A black tongue like a fat salamander flicked at the inside of its jaw bone. Its chest heaved as though it were breathing, but through the gaps in its armor, Vrana could see the half-missing ribcage was without a set of lungs.
At last, it spoke. “Well, what is it?”
Vrana studied the Skeleton as it continued to work on the dying man, extracting bits of flesh and muscle with a childlike but scientific sense of curiosity.
Offended by her silence, the Skeleton stopped mid-peeling, put down its tools loudly, and stared at the girl with the raven’s head. “I expect you want to know what it is exactly that I am doing. Yes?”
The Skeleton didn’t give Vrana a chance to respond.
“Is it not clear? I am looking for the essence of life. Yes, I know of blood and breath and organs and all the biological processes, but there is something more, something primal, much like the soul, but without all the religious annoyances and contrivances. Past endeavors …”
On cue, a red candle came to life behind the Skeleton, revealing a wall of bodies in various states of dismemberment and rot.
“…Have not been fruitful. But my eyes grow keener with every experiment, my mind more creative, more mature with every passing day. The sick man seeks cures for his ailment, the dying man cries out to a god for salvation. Why, then, should the undead not seek out life to reverse this most horrible condition of death?”
“Let him die,” Vrana said.
“He already has,” the Skeleton replied, gesturing to the body gone silent.
The Skeleton bent down, producing from beneath the altar a white sheet and placing it over the man; blood bled through and spread outward in thick petals. To Vrana, the act seemed unnecessary, but then again, so did the maniac’s entire wayward philosophy. She clutched her ax, waiting and hoping for the creature to give her the slightest reason to use it.
“Like me,” the Skeleton said, eying Vrana’s weapon, “you are something of an oddity, are you not? You are neither human nor bird, yet you present yourself as both. In fact, there is something curious about your arrival here tonight. I am not shocked by it, as though I knew it was going to happen all along. Tell me, do you feel the same, girl? Tell me, what is the nature of your feeling? You stand before a grisly scene unmoved by what you see. Tell me of what you feel, for this interests me more so than the life you hold deep in your chest.”
“He is Corrupted,” Vrana muttered as her excuse for being unaffected.
The Skeleton looked at her, surprised by her remark. In an attempt to strengthen her statement, she pulled back the sheet and pointed to the dead man’s right hand, which was covered in blood but lacked the distinct crimson defect. By this the Skeleton was even more perplexed, but soon its confusion gave way to amusement. Vrana let the sheet fall back over the corpse as her mind tried to cope with the situation.
Outside, the storm worsened: Thunder boomed like a cannon in the swollen sky; lightning snapped like a whip, felling trees where they stood; streams turned to rivers and the rivers formed a flood. Vrana knew that she had to escape this place. It would fall soon and she could hear the fevered howls of a mob tearing through the night, complete with clanging tools and makeshift weaponry.
“They come for me, if it wasn’t obvious enough from the theatrics of this entire event. I expect fate would have this be my final hour,” the Skeleton said, watching as Vrana moved towards a trapdoor she’d found in the pit’s floor. “They’ll join my pile, too, once I’ve seen what I need to see. Oh do stop. I have the key.”
The Skeleton removed a long key from the pockets of its robe and tossed it at Vrana’s feet. She ignored it, left the door, and mounted the rope ladder.
“You’re too interesting to kill, girl. I should hope we meet again, preferably with your tongue loosened some. You’re not much for conversation. Wait, where are you going?”
And then another voice, young and female, shouted, “You have to bring her back! I’ve been trying to find…”
Vrana’s stomach turned as the rope faded from her fingers and the walls of the keep dissolved. Halfway up the ladder, she fell, her head smacking against damp earth. Vision doubled, she closed her eyes, waiting for the pain and disorientation to subside.
When she opened them once more, it was still night, and she was still in the forest, and except for some scattered stones and bits of foundation, the keep was gone. She scurried backward until she bumped up against an embankment, and using it to help steady her
trembling legs, she rose to her feet.
Vrana was at the bottom of two sloping hills that were marked with protruding rocks like jagged teeth. Before her, the end of a long, rusted key glinted in the moonlight, the soil that surrounded it ruddy and soft. She pushed her hands under her mask and rubbed at her eyes and face, wiping away the sweat that had formed there. She moved forward to take the key.
She knew she was safe now, for the Black Hour stays true to its name in regards to length. The Black Hour, she thought to herself, hiding the key in the pouch beside the satchel which held the old man’s heart. Just my fucking luck.
Vrana pressed on, too numbed by her brush with madness to do much else but think on madness itself. She’d heard about it before, and she felt like something of a scholar on the subject given how often it had come up in her life. The Black Hour, that infernal slice of time that overlays midnight for an hour in some unpredictable manner, at some unknowable location. Details of the phenomenon were often handed down through giddy whispers from older siblings or in-the-know peers. Depending upon who was speaking, the Black Hour became sixty minutes of terror for those towns built upon the subterranean tunnels of the now extinct flesh fiends. Or it became a ghastly recollection of a village whose waters had turned toxic, reducing all who drank from it to bones. For those of a more romantic inclination, the Black Hour marked a time when ephemeral men and women would emerge from the ground, causing those who came upon them to fall in love with them. For those whose worldviews sat upon a political slant, they spoke of the Old World cities made richer in the hour by uncharacteristically kind dictators and monarchs, who tossed their wealth from their high towers to the masses they lorded over below.
Of course, Vrana had never heard of any story mentioning a keep or a Skeleton, but that didn’t matter. There was no truth to be had from the Black Hour, nor lies; during its passage, anything was possible, and for those who were not there, nothing was provable. Sixty minutes, and then it was over. Those killed by flesh fiends remained killed by flesh fiends. Those who drank the toxic waters remained ruined by toxic waters. Those who had fallen in love fell out and were left with nothing, for they had given everything. And those who had nothing and were given everything were beaten down, with each coin confiscated from their person by the royalty who had thrown it to them one minute prior.