Fire Heart (The Titans: Book One)

by Dan Avera

  “Five?” another scoffed from the back of the column. “That's it? I've a dozen at least. And I didn't have to go after the ugly ones, either. I bet even young master Rik's got more mistakes comin' than you!”

  A burst of mercenary laughter drove a flock of songbirds from a nearby tree and sent a lurking wood weasel scurrying into the underbrush. Will chuckled and turned back around in his saddle, letting his mind drift and his horse find its own way. Learn to enjoy the little things, he thought with a chuckle. It seemed the men were already far ahead of him in that area; there had certainly been no shortage of beautiful women in Prado, and he supposed his fellow Ravens' actions were to be expected. I wonder what it's like, he thought idly. Must be strange, to be able to jump into bed with any woman who's got two legs and a hole in the middle. Katryna leaped into his mind then, and her words from the day before danced around inside his head. She had been his friend for a very long time—longer even than Castor. He wondered if she had been serious—and whether she had always harbored such feelings for him.

  But that train of thought made him decidedly uncomfortable, and he pushed it from his mind, letting his thoughts drift instead to Priscilla and her family.

  Never hurt somebody unless they absolutely deserve it—without question. The thought of his own words seemed to mock him, dredging up long-forgotten memories in their wake. Did they all deserve it? he wondered, but the answer was painfully obvious.

  If you feel so guilty about it, then why not just stop?

  Will frowned, and what remained of his good mood evaporated. Helena had been right; who was he to lead by example? Death was his life—killing was what he was good at. It was all he knew. Guilt was an emotion he could not afford to feel. So why am I feeling it? he wondered. It's been so long...I'd forgotten what it was like.

  If you feel so guilty about it, then why not just stop?

  The image of Priscilla's smiling face danced tauntingly through his mind, looking up at him adoringly. He laughed softly at that—adoration for a killer. Maybe this is a sign that I'm supposed to retire, he thought. At least he had made things right with her—he hoped. If he was going to be the object of her worship, he was at least going to get her to worship him for the right reasons. And what reasons would those be? some little part of his mind asked. Remember the part where you kill people for money?

  Remember the part where you killed me?

  Something flashed across his vision for only a moment, darting across his path like a frightened animal. It was small and dark, its dirty face flecked with blood and streaked with tears. The Eastland girl glared up at him accusingly before disappearing into the undergrowth to his left. Will's heart pounded in his chest, and his breath came in short, quick little gasps, but he forced himself not to jump in his saddle. He waited for the specter to leap back out of the brush at him, but she never did.

  “Up ahead!” one of the mercenaries cried suddenly, startling Will so that his hands jerked the reigns and his steed snorted in irritation. He shook himself from his daze and looked up to see that just around a gentle curve in the road farther ahead the birch forest was beginning to thin, halting abruptly only a hard stone's throw away. Past the end of the tunnel of trees he could just make out several stone buildings at the top of a grassy rise. There didn't seem to be many of them, and they looked rather primitive. And deserted.

  “Doesn't seem to be much activity,” a man named Stefan murmured, echoing Will's thoughts. He trotted his horse up next to Will's and squinted into the distance. “In fact...I don't see anyone at all. Maybe they're holed up until help comes?” He looked questioningly at his captain, who could only shake his head and shrug.

  Soon they left the forest behind and broke out into the sun. The path narrowed from there, and on both sides the foothills sloped steeply downward to the stifling valleys far below—a long fall with an unhappy landing for the unwary. The road wound its way atop the rises for a short distance until widening once again at the town's entrance, which was marked by a stone trilix on each side. The holy symbols were smudged with soot at their pointed tops, and Will suspected they doubled as lantern waypoints for late-night travelers.

  This isn't a town, Will thought as his horse passed through the makeshift entrance. This is barely even a village. There were no more than a score of stone huts set in a circle around a slightly larger building at the center, which Will guessed to be a crude Gefanite temple. With its high, vaulting glass windows it seemed curiously out of place amid the thatched roofs and weathered shells of the huts. A handful of crows perched atop its canopy took flight as the mercenaries drew near, screaming in protest as they wheeled clumsily through the air.

  Stefan had been right—nobody came to meet them, and Will could not see another soul for leagues in any direction. At the very least he had expected to hear the sound of shutting windows and slamming doors as they crossed the town's border, but a silence broken only by the caw of the crows overhead was their sole greeting. The birds were a bad sign; Will had walked enough battlefields to recognize a scavenger when he saw one. The horses seemed to agree, knickering softly and tossing their heads in agitation. Will's danced to the side, its eyes wide with fear at some unseen terror, and he patted the gelding's neck in a futile attempt to calm it.

  “Hello!” Will called, cupping one hand around his mouth while trying to steady his horse with the other. There was no response. He passed another look around the village with narrowed eyes, a sense of unease forming in the pit of his stomach. Perhaps they've fled, he thought, but even to him the words lacked conviction. More than likely the bandits had returned to wipe away any trace of witnesses. He remembered suddenly the conversation he had overheard in the tavern, and sickening thoughts of Karkashian marauders flashed through his mind. “We've come to help you!” he called, but it was little more than a formality. He knew no answering yell would reach him; they were walking into a ghost town.

  Bandits, he thought, gritting his teeth. These were no bandits. He dismounted and drew his sword, his grip on the weapon's hilt tight enough to make the leather creak in protest. The other men followed suit, silent except for the scrape of metal and the creak of leather. “Rik,” Will said softly, and the boy darted up to him. “Find someplace to tether the horses.” The boy nodded and began collecting the steeds. “The rest of you spread out and search the houses. Something's not right.”

  They moved quietly, their soft footsteps and the occasional stifled tinkle of mail the only sounds aside from an oddly cheerful breeze. Will headed for the closest house and knocked lightly on the door. When there was no answer, he gave it a gentle push—and was surprised to find that it swung inward on creaking hinges. He stepped in and let his eyes adjust to the darkness.

  It seemed as though the occupants had left in a hurry; Will saw half-eaten plates of food on a small table, and the dying embers of a fire still smoldered in the hearth amid a mound of grey ash. He frowned. There were no people, no bodies, and no signs of a struggle. He stepped back outside as his sense of disquiet grew.

  The rest of the search produced the same results—each house was empty, as though its occupants had left in a hurry, and each showed none of the telltale signs of a fight of any kind. It seemed as though the villagers had simply left without bothering to collect any of their belongings, and had Will been a green recruit he would have thought this was the case. Decades of bloodshed, however, had taught him to always follow his gut feelings.

  It did not take long to search the huts, small as they were, and soon all that remained was the large building in the village center. It seemed strangely sinister as he approached it, its tall face wickedly imposing. Two heavy wooden doors guarded the entrance, and with a steadying breath Will braced his shoulder against one of them, signaling his men to make ready on either side of him. They moved into position with weapons drawn, silently awaiting his command to storm through the doorway. The air seemed quieter somehow, as if the world was holding its breath in anticipation. Will could hear
his heart beating like a drum, tapping out a steady rhythm that made his excitement rise with each passing instant. Now or never, he thought.

  Gripping his longsword with white-knuckled intensity, he mentally counted to three and then shoved with all his might. The door, like all the others, came open easily with a groan of protest, but this time each of the horses screamed in terror. A hot, foul stench, locked inside until that moment, hit them like a stone wall, and Rik doubled over, retching.

  “Spirits above,” Sam whispered, and Will, covering his nose against the stench, followed his gaze.

  Over the years the number of things that had cost Will his sleep had slowly dwindled away. There was now very little in the world that could claim to truly disturb him. Here, however, his eyes widened and his hand fell from his face, the choking stench no longer a concern. Found the villagers, he thought dully, and in some sequestered portion of his mind he realized that the building was not a temple as he had thought, but a town hall. It had but one room, and a long table lined with chairs had at one point sat in its center.

  Something had broken them, though, rending them into countless pieces and scattering them across the floor, which was not so much covered as flooded with dark, half-dried blood. It was on the walls, too, splashed haphazardly across them in long, ragged, crisscrossing stripes that had drawn little trails down the stones, and some small speckles had even reached the ceiling. The light streaming in from the high-set windows was broken by smudges of shadow where blood had spattered across the glass.

  And in the center of the room, laid out in one massive circle, were the bodies of the villagers. All fifty of them had been eviscerated, and pale coils of their intestines were strewn haphazardly across their naked forms like some madman's obscene work of art. A single old woman had been laid in their center, her arms and legs spread out to either side of her body and a second set of arms stretching out from her shoulders. Her own innards had been strung in a circle around her, creating a barrier between her and the other villagers.

  Will gagged and tried desperately not to vomit. Hundreds of flies swarmed around the corpses, filling the air with a high-pitched drone. Some of the villagers had soiled themselves, and the stench of refuse mixed with rotting flesh was so overpowering that Will gagged again and stumbled back outside, unable to hold it in any longer.

  He was sick even after his stomach was empty, but he stood and wiped his lips with the back of his hand and tried to force the sensation out of his mind. He opened his water skin and drank, trying to wash the taste of bile out of his mouth but succeeding only in gulping so quickly that he choked. “Spirits above,” he gasped and looked at Sam, who shook his head weakly. All of the men looked pale, and suddenly the bright summer day seemed far less cheerful and more a mockery. “I need to go look at them,” Will said finally. His men looked at him as though he were mad, and he met their gazes. “I've never seen anything like this before. I need to know what we're up against.”

  “But Will,” one of the men said, “they're dead! We're done here—we should go back to Prado.”

  The man wilted under Will's withering gaze. “We are going to stay here, Marten,” said Will, “and we are going to wait for whoever did this. And when they come back, we are going to kill them, because I find myself suddenly very, very angry.” Without another word he removed his cloak, pack, and war hammer and laid them to the ground away from the building along with his sword. Then he looked around for a moment until he saw a patch of wildflowers and tore a handful out of the earth. He pulled a long rag from his pack, crushed the wildflowers until their odor permeated the air around him, and wrapped them inside the rag. With the rag—and its scent—pressed firmly against his nose and mouth, he stepped inside.

  Outstanding, he thought as his eyes began to water. Now it smells like a rotting corpse covered in flowers. He walked to the nearest villager and knelt down, grimacing as the sticky miasma of blood sucked at his boots. It was an older man with a head of thinning silver hair. His scalp seemed to have been in the middle of a losing battle against liver spots. His mouth was stretched horrifically in a rictus grin, and maggots churned across his eyes and on the insides of his cheeks. There were more clustered around the wound in his gut, and on several other injuries around his body.

  Will narrowed his eyes and leaned closer. It looked almost like the body had been chewed by an animal in several places. What in the name of the Void? he thought. Hounds, maybe? It was not an entirely alien practice for soldiers and mercenaries to bring trained hounds into battle, and he had heard that there were some cities in the Westlands that were quite fond of the practice. But he had never encountered a Karkashian regiment with them, and the only dogs he had ever seen with Eastlanders were thin, wiry little mongrels. Perhaps sand dragons, then, or dhe'ghar.

  He moved to the next body, and then the next. Each of the corpses followed the same pattern—disemboweled, chewed, and in some cases there were what appeared to be ragged claw marks. Will shook his head, unable to make sense of the spectacle, and finally left when the overpowering stench threatened to make him vomit what little remained in his stomach.

  “Well?” Sam asked as Will closed the door behind him.

  “I...I don't know,” he replied quietly. “It looks almost like they were...” he barked a short laugh, “like they were attacked by animals.” He massaged his temples and gritted his teeth in frustration. “But animals don't disembowel humans and use them like a decoration for some...demonic ritual,” he growled. “And the doors were closed—you could tell as well as I could that nothing had been inside that building with them. I didn't even see any footprints.” He shook his head. “Bandits indeed. You know, Sam, I wonder...there are terrible things that live in the wild places of the world...”

  “But Prado is just down the way,” Sam murmured. “Maybe if we were up by the Kahara, or deeper into the mountains, but this close to a city?”

  Rik muttered something, and Will turned to see the boy shaking as though cold and staring at the ground with wide eyes.

  “What did you say, Rik?” Will asked.

  “Keth,” the boy whispered. “The bodies...it's a sign of Keth.” He looked up at Will. “The seven-pointed star in a circle. It's a sign of Keth.”

  “Quiet, boy,” said Sam. “That's pagan superstition. The Titan religion died out long ago, and if you're not careful with that tongue, one of Gefan's children might feel the need to cut it out.”

  But Rik jerked his head from side to side as though he had not heard, tears leaking from the corners of his eyes. “No,” he whispered, “no...no...no...no...”

  Will looked at another of the soldiers and jerked his head in Rik's direction. The man nodded, put an arm around the boy's shoulders, and led him off a short way, talking to him in a soothing, quiet tone. Will folded his arms across his chest, troubled by the boy's words.

  “Sir?” Sam stood close to Will, searching his face. “What are your orders?”

  A sign of Keth. Will glared at the ground as though to provoke answers from the earth itself through intimidation. A sign of Keth. A sign from a dead god. Spirits above, what is this?

  “Are any of you men of the faith?” he said at last, and several men tentatively raised their hands.

  “I follow the word of Gefan, sir,” one sellsword answered, grasping a trilix pendant around his neck.

  “Should you wish to say some words for the dead, now is the time,” Will said. “When you're done...burn the bodies. If the people who did this are still around, that should bring them back. We'll all sleep together in one of the huts tonight; no need to get caught on our own.”

  They left the bodies in the building, unwilling to drag them out into the open air. Will told himself it was because he did not wish to further defile the corpses, but that thought rang hollow in his mind. They deserve a decent burial, he thought as he hurled a torch into their midst. Not this. The sun had just started to sink over the horizon by the time the oily black smoke began to billow
from the open doors of the town hall. When the sunset drenched the land in its bloody red glow, a feeling of foreboding washed over Will; the night, he was sure, would hold answers. What he was less sure of was whether those answers were what he wanted to see. A sign of Keth. The words continued to dance around in his mind, refusing to leave him be. It was ridiculous, of course. Nobody followed the old ways anymore. Keth and the rest of the Titans were a belief that had been dead for five hundred years. Rik had to be mistaken.

  And as if on cue, his ears pricked at the sound of soft footsteps behind him. He turned to see Rik standing shame-faced with his eyes locked firmly upon Will's boots.

  “Yes?” Will prompted.

  “Sir,” Rik began in an embarrassed mumble, “I...about what happened earlier...”

  Will held up a stalling hand. “It's fine. We're all strung a bit tightly right now.” He clapped the boy on the shoulder. “Don't worry about it. We'll get the bastards who did this.” Rik nodded silently and turned to leave.

  A thought suddenly occurred to Will, and he said softly, “Rik...do you follow the old ways?”

  In answer the boy's cheeks reddened. “Er...my grandmother did,” he answered. “She was one of the last. I grew up with it.” He shrugged self-consciously. “But it's not like I believe in that mystical—”

  “Tell me about Keth.”

  Surprise flitted across Rik's face. “Er—really?” he asked in disbelief, and Will nodded. “Alright...well, he was the god of time and death. The old stories say that he went mad because his brothers and sisters cast him out after he gave death to the world. But...you already know this, right? I mean, everybody's heard the stories...”

  “Yes, but please,” he motioned with his hand, “continue. The stories change from place to place.”