by Scott Hale
Atticus, the undying gravedigger, seeks revenge against the king for the death of those he loves, while finding a way through the Black Hour itself to resurrect the dead.
Felix, the Holy Child, plagued by visions of Vrana in his sleep, tries to find a way to liberate her from her torment. Unsure who he can trust, he is pulled further into the darkness and treason all around him.
Taking place before, during, and after Vrana’s journey, The Three Heretics explores those three Corrupted who have, through subterfuge and slaughter, righteousness and reluctance, manipulated the world to their liking, while inadvertently bringing it closer to another Trauma.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any relevance to any person, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales are entirely coincidental.
THE THREE HERETICS
All rights reserved.
Copyright © 2016 Scott Hale
Cover art by Hannah Graff
Map by Jacquelyn Graff
Edited by Jacqueline Kibby
This book is protected under the copyright law of the United States of America. Any reproduction or other unauthorized use of the material or artwork herein is prohibited without the express written permission of the author.
First Edition: October 2016
ISBN-13: 978-1-7330966-2-1
BOOKS BY SCOTT HALE
The Bones of the Earth series
The Bones of the Earth (Book 1)
The Three Heretics (Book 2)
The Blood of Before (Book .1)
The Cults of the Worm (Book 3)
The Agony of After (Book .2)
The Eight Apostates (Book 4)
Novels
In Sheep’s Skin (Coming 2020)
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Listen to Terrorcast, hosted by Scott and Kameron Hale.
PART ONE
THE BLOOD IN US ALL
CHAPTER I
Carrion birds wheeled overhead, cawing and clawing and laying claim to the bodies on the forest floor below.
Edgar lifted his head from the ground to look up at the winged death that darkened the skies. Quickly, he turned over, shedding the feathers that had fallen onto him, and pulled a sword from the dead man nearby.
The birds hissed, barbed tongues flicking inside their black beaks. United by hunger, they swarmed and dove into the sea of leaves.
Edgar scurried backward, up and over the second corpse—a fly-ridden horse. From there, using the beast’s bruised flesh as his bulwark, he watched the creatures descend.
Their massive claws clamped down on the nearest branches and rocks. Out of their scaled breasts, mouths unraveled, extended, and started chomping at the air. From their riotous hunger, the branches and rocks began to snap and crack. The twenty-pound scavengers lifted off, back into the air, and rushed forward.
Edgar gripped the sword, closed his eyes, and hoped that when they opened again, the birds would be lying dead before him, just like the man had been.
A talon dug into his flesh and tore a chunk of it away. His eyes snapped open to the whirlwind of claws and dripping jaws that surged before him.
Crying out, he gave the sword a desperate swing. The blade cut through the feathery maelstrom, splitting stomachs and nicking necks. Edgar stumbled backward as he hacked at the birds, while those he’d grounded crawled after him, their torso mouths fully protracted, looking like intestines. With teeth.
The carrion birds circled him, their hunger second to their sadism. They came in twos and threes, tearing off pieces of Edgar’s skin in passing as he stabbed at them and cursed their cruelty. Blood streamed down his face, beaded down his armor. He screamed, drove his sword through a bird mid-flight, and impaled it into the earth.
A few minutes into the bloody ordeal, and Edgar was already exhausted. His movements were pained, sluggish and worn by the journey he couldn’t remember, and handicapped by the training he had never received. He cut another bird from the sky, and crushed its skull underfoot. His arm had grown heavy, the Corruption that colored it enflamed by the violence.
He turned to flee, outnumbered and overrun, but the beaks, by fours and fives now, kept him in his place.
Tears streaming down his face, Edgar dropped to his knees, curled into a ball, and accepted what was to come.
The carrion birds descended, their black wings like curtains closing around him. So close, he could smell and feel the unholy creatures. They smelled of the grave, the ravenous escapees from Death’s great cage, and burned hotter than the sun under which they slaughtered.
Again, Edgar closed his eyes. Splotches of pain, like paint, were splattered across his lids. This time, he was certain they wouldn’t open again.
A bell chimed in the distance, somewhere beyond this fog of suffering.
One eye open, Edgar watched the carrion birds crash into the ground. There, each of them writhed in shared agony. The mouths in their breasts twisted and stretched to their ripping limits.
When the bell hit its loudest tones, the mouths snapped back and clamped down over the birds’ own heads. Blood and skin leaked from the pale appendages as the birds feasted on themselves.
The carrion birds were neck-deep before they stopped moving.
Edgar struggled to his feet, fighting to stay conscious. Before him, the forest swayed peacefully, indifferent to the massacre that wetted its soil.
As he bent down to grab the sword, he caught sight of something in the distance: a ragged shadow, small and jittery, ducking into the foliage.
A second bell rang throughout the killing grounds. The shadow vanished, and when it did, it took with it the piercing din.
Edgar didn’t have to be a physician to know he didn’t have long before he bled out. He went to the ground and rooted through the plants around the cannibalized birds. Hiss, Twist, and Dark—he passed over the flowers. Numb, Dawn, and Dream—he clutched, crushed, and chewed. His body warmed, deadened, and drifted, but it wouldn’t be enough to see him through the night.
He grunted like a ghoul, and crawled like one, too, towards the grass that shimmered silver and sang of salvation.
The hurt inside him had coalesced into a suffocating knot around his chest. Edgar blinked the tears from his eyes, and reached for and ripped out the Anansi growths he’d spotted. The small nests of webbing pricked his fingertips as he pulled them apart and shoved them into his wounds. His neck, arms, legs, and sides stung as the webs coated the cuts and gouges and pulled them together; any bacteria or disease the birds had been carrying would be left to prosper, but at least he wouldn’t be dead before the hour’s end.
He stepped over the birds, minding those that still twitched with intent. He went to the corpse of the man and the horse. Although he didn’t recognize them, he knew they had been the ones to bring him here. He grabbed a pouch full of water, then searched them for food. When he found it, he shoveled the bread and meat into his mouth, in much the same way the birds would have done to him, had the shadow not intervened.
As Edgar chewed the meat and sucked water, he studied the man’s stomach. There was a slit from where a sword—Edgar’s sword, most likely—had split him. Edgar wondered why he had killed the man and if the man had deserved it. He glanced at the horse and worried its demise may have been his doing, too.
His family would be proud; of all the qualities to inherit from his mother and father, murderousness was not one he, nor anybody else, had expected.
He couldn’t stay here, of that much he was certain, for the stench of death would call forth from all corners and crevices the skittering and starving.
Edgar gathered provisions—food and drink, dagger and blankets, flowers and Anansi growths—and stowed them in the bag he had lifted from the horse. He considered the forest, which gave no hint as to his whereabouts. He noticed a depression between the trees, where the horse’s hooves had stompe
d out a path, and followed it, for he believed it would surely lead him out of this terrible place.
It did not.
The further he went, the deeper he plunged into the forest, traveling in maddening circles over familiar sites. He crossed the same stream twice, passed the same felled tree thrice. A gathering of stones like an altar mocked him on his fifth visit. A cave yawned in boredom as he studied it for the tenth time.
He wiped the sweat from his brow. When he thought he could sweat no more, he felt its familiar sting at the edges of his eyes.
Living in Eldrus hadn’t prepared him for such a harsh climate. In fact, living in Eldrus hadn’t prepared him for much of anything at all; he was weak, ignorant. He swung his sword in such a way because that’s how he had seen his brother do it. He knew of the qualities of curatives because he spied his sister mixing them. All that he brought with him to this wooded seclusion was kindness and blood; the former of no use, the latter almost run dry.
The Gray Arbor, Elsa’s Rest, and Keldon’s Retreat. The Darkwood, Sun Spot, and Sorrow’s Garden. Edgar thought of the many forests of the North, and knew by where he stood this wasn’t any of them; the landscape was senseless, endless. Distant hills disappeared when approached, and waters flowed opposite one another on the same plot. In the blink of an eye, massive clouds would form and shower the land in rain that never reached the ground. In some places, the temperature would plummet, and in these pockets plants stood frigid in a forever winter. Even the wildlife was mysteriously absent, and yet he could feel their presence all around him, like they were stalking him. This forest was nowhere, and everywhere; a combination of all things expected, respected, and feared.
The twelfth time Edgar came upon the cave he called it quits. He searched it, front to back, and, to his relief, found nothing awaiting him.
The sword dropped first, and then his body. He hit the stone hard, more fatigued than he had ever been. He was at a loss, at an impasse, at the very moment that would decide the moments to come.
He went through the bag he had been carrying. A chain slithered out of it, to the side. He grabbed it, and held it up. It was an identification tag, the same given to traders as proof of their profession. The metal was worn, bloodstained, and read: Jack Abney, Cathedra. Had this been the corpse’s name? Edgar’s finger found the loop of a second tag. He lifted it and saw engraved across its plate: Alex Greene, Islaos.
More identification tags followed, of both men and women, from the Heartland towns, the Southern Cradle outposts, and the city of Geharra itself. The corpse had lived a hundred lives before Edgar had robbed him of his last.
Edgar wondered what the man had called himself to slip past the gates; what promises he had made to those Edgar trusted the most to see Edgar drugged and delivered here.
“I bet you thought I could make you rich,” Edgar said. He dropped the tags. “I bet—” he scanned his surroundings, “—you set your ransom and asked them to meet you here.”
Radiating warmth and madness, he mumbled, “But where is here?”
The answer came quicker than he expected, and in the form of universal dread. Ahead, where the trees were intertwined, sunlight glinted and gleamed.
Edgar squinted, stood up, and followed the winking refraction coming through that crowded place.
In the cropping, behind the bark, vermillion veins fed in and out of the trees. The growths bulged as a thick, brooding liquid coursed through their crystalline tubing.
“Oh no.” Edgar put his hand to his mouth. “Oh no, no, no.”
He retreated to the cave, took up his sword, and sat there until nightfall, where he chewed on his lip and jumped at every sound, and wondered if god would truly damn him if he were to kill himself; for from the Nameless Forest, there was no other escape.
CHAPTER II
Fifty Days Ago
The city of Eldrus stood in Edgar’s peripheral, taunting him to turn around and have a look at all its disappointments. He ignored the city, just as so many had told him to do, and kept his attention on Ghostgrave. Despite its name, the keep did not want for life; at any time of the day or night, one could look through any window, walk down any corridor, or climb up any tower and find one of the many distinguished persons that stayed here, or the servants that served them.
“Little brother, what are you doing out here all alone?” a voice called out from behind Edgar.
He glanced over his shoulder. The pavilion upon which he stood was congested with people today. It was a popular place for dignitaries to come and spread rumors, while at the same time enjoying the dismal sight of the city, which the pavilion overlooked. It wasn’t a haunt he expected his brother Vincent to frequent, and yet there he was, cutting through the crowd, practically chewing on the gossip he seemed so eager to share.
“Not much,” Edgar said. He strolled over to the white, ivy-laced balcony that stood a good forty feet above the ground and took a seat at one of the benches beside it. “Going somewhere?”
Vincent grinned as the incessant wind tugged at his black robes. He joined Edgar at the balcony and settled in on the bench beside him. Nodding at Eldrus, he said, “If that heart of yours bleeds any more, we’ll have to find you a new one.”
Edgar rolled his eyes. “What good are we to them if we don’t even listen to what they have to say?”
“What good are we to them if we give them everything they want?” Vincent smiled victoriously.
“There’s a difference between wants and needs.”
“Do they know that?” Vincent touched the family seal that had been burnt into his bracelet. “Enough is never enough.”
Edgar stared at Eldrus. The city sat in the palm of the five spires that surrounded it, and behind the great ashen walls that guarded it. Tens of thousands moved through the obsidian sprawl on a daily basis, between home and work, crime and casualty. Eldrus was massive, a world all its own; a city capable of providing anything, and yet it gave so many nothing.
Edgar wanted to debate social responsibility with his brother, but he knew he would sound foolish, so instead he said, “Why are you happy?”
Vincent smiled, patted his knees with excitement, and stood up. “We got one,” he said, laughing. His eyes widened as he shouted, “A Night Terror. We got one.”
Edgar was reluctant to follow his brother through the headstone-gray corridors of Ghostgrave; Vincent wasn’t a cruel man, but his curiosity often begot cruelties.
Who am I to judge? Edgar nodded at all the irrelevant dignitaries that passed him by. I’ve been dying to talk to a Night Terror ever since Horace told me their tale.
Vincent twirled around like a girl after her first dance and said, “What should we ask it?”
“Why not start with why they’re so determined to murder us all?” Edgar could think of a thousand other questions to ask the creature, but only if he were alone with it, where no one could listen to him, or judge him.
“My lords,” a calming voice called out.
Edgar and Vincent turned around, going red like the boys they had been and were supposed to have outgrown.
Archivist Amon stood a few feet away, half-hidden behind one of the many pillars that lined the hallway. He shook his head, having clearly heard everything the two had said to one another.
“Why not invite the whole keep?” the Archivist teased. He walked toward them. The buckle on the book he held clapped against the cover. The book was titled The Disciples of the Deep, and it was a novel he had been writing for as long as Edgar could remember. “I’m coming with you.”
If there ever were a ghost in Ghostgrave, Archivist Amon could have surely been it; he was thin and pale. When he moved, he did so in silence, without any effort, as though no feet carried him beneath his heavy robes. His age and lineage were often the matter of speculation.
He had no known birthright that would justify his place on the royal council, and yet no justification could be made to remove him from it. His knowledge of the Old World was invaluable.
Edgar’s father trusted him above most others, and if the old man was good enough for the king, then he was good for everyone else as well.
Amon leaned into Vincent. “How did you come about this poor creature?”
“Patrol found him wounded against the wall. He broke his leg coming over.” Victor steered them around the corner, through a doorway, and down the staircase that would lead them to the bowels of Ghostgrave. “I think we can all figure out what it had in mind.”
Two guards stood by the dungeon door, their faces not much different than the cracked cobblestone wall which divided the entryway from the rest of the cells. On the workbench beside the door, a card game was in session. The winnings, which consisted of teeth and nails from the keep’s prisoners, were piled sloppily on a three-legged chair.
The guards nodded at the Archivist, and bowed to the brothers. With an overflowing key ring, the smaller of the two men undid the lock to the door and stepped aside.
Edgar, Vincent, and Amon went through. Prison cells and the despondent criminals inside awaited them. Spit, blood, and a bubbly pink mixture of the two were hurled back and forth across the dungeon, as the inmates tried to soil these esteemed men.
Edgar covered his nose, the smell of sweat and feces turning his stomach. Naked bodies with welted flesh pressed against the bars. These people begged, in between threats of violence, for a pardon. Repulsion quickly replaced Edgar’s feelings of pity; he hated himself for it.
The dungeon ended in a rotund space that contained several cells to hold prisoners of importance.
“My lords,” the guards here whispered, rising from their tables and chairs to bow. “Archivist,” they added, as Amon stared at them.
“It’s just over here,” a portly guard by the name of Brennan said. “We patched it up.” To Amon, he said, “It’s not in pain anymore.”