by Scott Hale
Nora laughed, leaning back against the table. “No, she did not. You make for good company, little bird, unlike some of your kind. There are traders who pass through on occasion. I’ll see what I can find on this Witch, now that you’ve piqued my interest. But don’t hold me to it. I was expecting only three, but we’ve the horses to spare. Strange tidings in the North, I hear. For once, I think I knew something before the Bat did. Well done with the mountain, by the way; set the town ablaze with rumors, you all did. Rumors are welcome here. Anything to keep the worry away.”
Vrana realized something about Nora as she rambled on, something which she suspected the woman would only admit to in the late hours of the night, when even humans take off their masks. She was lonely, incredibly lonely, much like the boy who roamed below Vrana’s village, searching for solace in the words of the dead.
“What do you mean by ‘strange tidings’?” Vrana asked, redirecting Nora.
“I heard the water has turned bitter near Geharra, and your people were on the move. Holy men came all the way from Penance with gifts and never left after Geharra’s gates were opened to them. Some even passed through here a few days ago, spewing nonsense as they often do.”
Nora yawned as she stepped toward Vrana. “I did not see the Bat for two months. I’m lucky if I do not see him for two weeks. Whatever you intend to do in the North, I fear it will be too little too late. But I do have two children from two mothers who would each like to see their fathers, traders, come home; so if you find them, please send them my way. Jakob and Richard are their names. It’s a long shot, but you’d be surprised how small the world can be.”
Sensing that their conversation had come to an end, Vrana nodded at the mayor of Nora and reached for the door handle. She contemplated and then her tongue loosened with curiosity. “What is it that the Bat does for you?”
Nora produced a flask from her pocket and drank it dry. “It is hard to live on these stony shores when there is so much life farther off. I maintain the flowers that bloom here. He cuts the weeds that try to smother them.”
Lucan and Serra were waiting for Vrana at the foot of the library’s steps, the four horses’ reins in hand. Lucan asked Vrana if she found anything of use in the books, and she told him that she had not. They funneled the beasts through town as quietly as they could, but there was little that could be done to silence the clap of the horses’ hooves on the hard earth.
Whereas their entry into Nora had been exciting, their departure was something entirely different: a mixture of alarm and trepidation as the air around them seemed to fold from the tension. Vrana sensed the eyes of the awoken following them through windows and doorways as they marched back to camp. She bent over as they passed through a breach in the town’s stone wall and plucked an aquamarine Whisper that had grown there.
Vrana could feel her teeth chattering as the wind buffeted her from the west, where the shadows were dispersing into the sea. Her horse brushed its head against her mask affectionately, and she imagined it leaving behind a large patch of saliva for her companions to gawk at. Nora, both the town and the person, were not what she had expected, which, in some way, was exactly what she expected given the elders’ penchant for withholding information. She would need to ask Deimos about the mayor’s lack of Corruption, as well as his own reported disappearance, though she expected the latter to be brushed away or met with cold silence.
“Look,” Lucan said pointing toward the forest. “Do you see it?”
At first, Vrana didn’t, but slowly the moonlit darkness took on a shape, and then it became many shapes, all moving independently of one another, their colors fluctuating between a somber gray and dull white. Immediately, her thoughts turned to the Black Hour, and her hands scrambled for the pouch where the Skeleton’s key rested, as though, by holding it, the item would keep her anchored to reality. Lucan and Serra displayed no signs of worry, however, and when Vrana realized the period for that infernal hour had already passed, her heart steadied.
“What is it?” she asked as the shapes became visibly human, watching as they interacted with one another, oblivious to their surroundings.
“Echoes,” she suddenly remembered. “They are Echoes.”
Serra grunted in confirmation. The elders told Vrana and her peers in their youth that no actions were without consequences, that all choices would be remembered and felt throughout time, for time itself was alive. Others said that when the earth slept it sometimes dreamt of what had been but no longer was.
Vrana subscribed to neither theory and instead found enjoyment in watching the ethereal men and women before her pass over cobblestone streets and into surging crowds, the towers that loomed over them spewing flickering smoke into their future sky.
And then her enjoyment faded as the scene dissolved, quickly replaced by another comprised of tall buildings, speeding automobiles, and an act of violence in the foreground: a child bludgeoned in a small square of a room, his skull breaking off at the spine and rolling into the corner. More shapes entered as others faded away—airplanes, carriages, and fields of dying men—until the Echoes coalesced into one massive and terrible shape that was there for a moment, and then it was gone.
“They never fail to impress,” Lucan said, with Serra grunting in agreement. “Some places are better for it than others, you’ll see. Or maybe you won’t.” Lucan laughed, slowing his pace as they entered the thicket where their encampment awaited. “It’s only fair that I take first watch. After all, it was my Corrupted who screamed.”
CHAPTER XIII
The first had been a charming man, a lecherous man; a pauper who had happened upon Nora by chance and charmed its citizens, until he found himself abed with a grieving widow. He took all of the widow’s love, even when it was not his to take, and then took her money, too. When he tired of the widow, he left, flicking his silver tongue at the first man or woman to cross his path. Those who called Nora home were not known for invading the privacy of others, but when the man’s appetites became such that none but the children could satisfy them, a decision was made in secret by the townsfolk.
He had been waiting for Serra in a spare bedroom, dressed in rags that befitted his person, weeping as he clutched a lock of stolen hair.
The second had been a kind man, a generous man; a husband and father of three who had lived in Nora since before the building of the stone wall, when the trees were nearer and the sea crueler. He never took what was not earned, and went without so that those he loved wouldn’t have to. He had a child in the Heartland with a successful business and a plot picked out near the Elys, where he could build a house and grow old in it.
He had screamed as Lucan pushed the blade into his heart, not because of the pain, but because in the man’s dying moments, his sleeping wife had reached for his hand and smiled.
“Why kill him?” Vrana asked from within her cocoon of blankets and cloak, Blix nestled against her neck.
“It’s not the first time this has happened, Vrana,” Lucan said, stretching out his legs. “If we only killed those who we felt deserved it, then the Corrupted would be quick to realize this, and we would be passing judgment. Did your second trial deserve his death?”
“It must seem random,” Deimos added, his voice barely rising above the howling wind. “The Corrupted thrive when they are united by purpose. So long as we remain a threat, so long as stories are told and nightmares of us are had, they remain in their lands—their lives, and the lives of others better for it.”
Vrana shook her head. She looked at the horses tethered to the trees, their coats streaked with white moonlight. “But you didn’t kill them because you felt they deserved it. She asked you to do it.” Vrana had told them of her meeting with the mayor.
“Yes,” Deimos said, “as she has done in the past. I told Nora of our need as I made for Caldera, and she told me of hers. Did the elders not send you into that forest to kill a Corrupted?” Deimos pulled a heat rock closer to his body. “This was the only way to
make up for lost time. The elders approved.”
Vrana remembered what Nora had told her about Deimos’ disappearance. “How much time was lost?”
“Too much,” he said, lying down on his side. “Go to sleep.”
Vrana looked at Serra, who sat beside her, unmoving. She assumed he had fallen asleep an hour ago, but when she saw his eyes glint from the mouth of his mask, she knew that he hadn’t. She stared at him for a while, trying to envision what it would be like to live without a voice. In her studies of the Old World, she found there were professions dedicated to the art of listening. She imagined Serra would be very good at this kind of work, should it ever exist again.
“Nobody expects you to do as we have done here tonight,” Lucan said quietly. “But don’t expect it to stop because you refuse to take part.”
Blix pressed himself closer to Vrana’s neck, his claws clamping down painfully on her skin. “I know,” she said, moving the bird to her lap. “Killing doesn’t bother me. I just need a good reason to do it.” She bit her lip. “Do you think it works?”
Lucan laughed and lay down. “It has for the past two hundred years.” He sat back up, as though he had remembered he was to keep watch over the encampment.
“I should know these things,” Vrana said to herself, again bewildered by the decisions of the elders. She looked over at the tangled, bubbling mass on the edge of the camp that had been the conjured horses from Caldera. “So much time wasted on things that don’t even matter. Old World politics? Old World religions? Fucking Old World subway stations?”
“Not all villages are the same, girl,” Lucan said, shivering as he spoke. “You’ll learn, you’ll see. You may be thankful for all that fucking Old World nonsense one day. Go to sleep. You’re distracting me.”
Vrana knew that she was dreaming, because her father was alive. She was young, no taller than his waist, and the village was still a vast expanse begging to be explored. She liked the way she had to look up at him and the way that he looked down at her, and how his arms seemed to lift her from the ground so effortlessly. Never had she found a place more comforting than by his side or against his chest. He wore no mask when they were alone together, and she liked that, too. They were playing hide-and-seek, of all things, when the dream came to an end.
“Vrana!” she heard Lucan hiss. “Get up. They’ve found us.”
To whom he was referring Vrana didn’t know, but the worry in his voice was enough to wake her up and send her hands scrambling for her mask and weapons. The thicket glowed with the light of countless torches, their hungry, orange flames flailing at the skeletal trees. Talk of revenge, injustice, and insurrection fell upon her and her companions from all sides, like one wall closing in upon the other. She came to her feet, hastily scanning the distance for signs of the Skeleton’s keep, its absence another confirmation that the Black Hour had passed.
“Murderers. They are nothing more than murderers. Look, they sleep as men do!”
“I told you those were only masks.”
“Christopher was a decent man. He didn’t deserve to die in his sleep like a dog.”
And then a voice familiar to Vrana cut through the rabble. “There, at the center,” Nora said in a tone that suggested she was enjoying the fury. “Mind yourselves. They do not fear pain as we do.”
At once, the crowd emerged through the trees, a closely packed chain of countless hateful, heaving bodies clamoring for warmth and bloodshed. Held in each Corrupted hand were shovels, pickaxes, knives, hoes, sharp rocks, and heavy branches—makeshift weaponry for a makeshift assault. Though he was not alone, it was Deimos to whom they spoke and spat, for the people of Nora knew and feared him most. They recited names like sins—Joseph, Alex, Liza, Howard, Christina, little Peter—and the ways in which they’d died—stabbing, strangulation, stabbing, suffocation, stabbing, strangulation—and demanded bloody expiation for the Bat’s crimes.
At the behest of his drooling father, a boy no older than twelve threw a stone at Vrana and her companions, but it sailed off course, overhead, into the leaves. The horses snorted loudly, tugging to be free of their tethers, frightened of their owners, who had once treated them so well. More stones flew through the air, cracking against Vrana’s armor, Serra’s mask, followed by handfuls of wet feces.
“Someone must have followed us back,” Vrana said as she leaned toward Lucan. She felt her stomach turn when she caught a glimpse of Nora with her crossbow. “She betrayed us.”
“No,” Lucan said, ducking to avoid a rock. “She did the only thing that she could.”
Serra grunted and then pushed Vrana away. A townswoman came at him, sickened with the madness of the group. Nora’s people watched and cheered as her hand scythe danced with Serra’s sword. Vrana twitched at every deflected blow, stepping aside to avoid the townswoman’s frenzied swipes. Beads of sweat leapt from Serra’s body as he moved. The townswoman’s scythe found his flesh and tore a chunk of it away. He didn’t cry out in agony as his blood ran down the townswoman’s skirts, but she did, as her blood ran down his blade, when he ran it through her gut.
In groups of two and three, the townspeople flooded the encampment, swinging their torches and their tools with abandon. Most were not skilled fighters, but with their numbers, it mattered naught. Vrana backed away, batted away those who were hesitant to engage. If they were to prevail here, how many would be left, and would it be enough to sustain the town? Hearing footsteps, she turned around to find a woman bearing down on her with a pitchfork. She turned sideways, the prongs scraping against her armor, and took the woman’s leg off with her ax.
A wiry, bare-chested man followed, armed with nothing but his massive hands. Vrana pushed a dagger through each one, and then screamed as she felt a torch being rammed into her back. Deimos wrenched the torch away and pierced the bearer’s lung with his sword.
“Watch out!” Lucan said through his teeth as a bolt from Nora’s crossbow ripped through air, catching one of her own in the thigh.
“Here!” someone cried out in the night. “They’re here. They have them!”
As his father urged him onto her, Vrana pushed away the little boy who’d thrown the first stone. Again, he put his son before him, sending the child to Vrana with nothing but tears upon his cheeks. She swallowed her pride and knocked the boy unconscious with the handle of her ax. The father, outraged and somehow offended, launched himself at Vrana, driving his torch into her chest. Silently, she thanked Bjørn for the armor, and then took off the father’s head. His blood sprayed into the holes of her mask; it burned hotter than the fire he carried.
For a moment, the mob was stilled, exhausted. Vrana reached into her mask and wiped away the sweat that had formed there. Lucan put his hands to his hips and struggled to catch his breath. Serra and Deimos stood stoically by one another, covered in blood and burn marks. A murmur spread through the crowd; those who had initially stayed back in Nora now emerged and bolstered the nearly beaten ranks.
A man with braided blond hair stepped forward. “It starts here!” he bellowed. “Too many have suffered at your hands. We will be haunted by your kind no longer!”
The crowd surged forward. Embers swirled around the thicket, catching falling leaves and loose kindling aflame. Vrana braced herself for the impact, trying not to think of her mother, of her father, of Aeson, and of all those she’d left behind. The ground shook beneath her feet. She thought she heard Lucan say something to her, but it was drowned out, not by the voices but by something else, something …
Vrana and her companions fell to the ground as a powerful gale swept through the area. It drank fire from the torches and places where it had dared to spread. The sweat and blood froze on Vrana’s skin as the temperature plummeted. All sound ceased, smothered beneath a blanket of noise, a droning song of buzzing and clicking. Hate had united the horde, but now it was terror, as a black cloud descended from the sky.
The cloud slammed into the ground, covering Vrana, Deimos, Lucan, and Serra, and
then it spread outward. Vrana could hardly lift her head, but when she did, she watched as thousands of black flies filled screaming mouths, as bare flesh wept bright blood from a million bites. Bodies of those who had fallen in the skirmish bloated around her, the insects funneling through each orifice, searching for innards to eat and a cavity in which to nest. Vrana reached for the young boy she had knocked out, but there was little left to hold on to. Serra put his arm around her and held her down, and as she lay there, breathing dirt, these words from the Old World journal repeated through her head: “I wear the flies like a robe, and yet she doesn’t mind. A thousand tiny deaths between us every time we touch.”
The black cloud dispersed seconds later, leaving Vrana, Blix, her companions, and the horses untouched. They lay there for a moment, too overwhelmed, mentally and physically, to do much of anything else. Corpses exploded around them, sending maggot-covered chunks of fat and muscle around the thicket, the flies escaping under the cover of the gore. Vrana pushed herself up from the ground and looked at Lucan, who kept repeating to himself, “What the hell was that?” She knew well enough what the hell had happened: the Witch had saved them.
Her companions were not shaken or hysterical as others may have been, but there was a stiffness in their movements, a poverty in their words that told Vrana they were frightened. She was the first to begin packing, and by her example, they stopped their pacing, uncrossed their arms, and lifted their gazes from the ground to do the same.
The fires burned brightly in Nora that night and would continue to burn brightly for all days and nights to come.
“What happened back there, Deimos?” Lucan asked the next day as they entered the Dires of the North.
“Another gift from the elders, perhaps,” Deimos replied, sounding thoroughly unconvinced by his own words.
A gift from the Witch, Vrana almost considered saying aloud. “What’s that?” she said instead, pointing to a tall building in the distance.