I arch my brows and study the colourful objects with a new perspective. “Carriages.”
“They have four wheels a piece,” he tells me, his voice a gentle huff. He must be quiet. Too many humans are around. “But where are their horses?”
We near the end of the path, and I scan our surroundings for a stable. There must be one for the horses. But all I see are those modern carriages and lots of tents.
One of the carriages is so enormous that I imagine Shadow would fit into it quite easily.
“Shall we move onwards?” he asks. “Or find shelter?”
We don’t need shelter, Shadow and I. We can trek through heavy rainfall for months on end, walk across entire ocean floors, and wander through battlefields.
But right after my awakening, I have yet to create a sickness within me—and I like to enjoy those precious days while Famine allows it.
Sometimes, I think she wakes me early to give me my ‘alone’ days. She knows how I like them.
The sun is beating down on us as we wander along the path. It has scorched the earth and burned the shrubs to within an inch of dehydration. Much hotter than when I last walked these lands.
I fling myself up onto Shadow’s saddle. “We’ll wander. Onwards.”
۞
While I straddle my steed, I am invisible to the humans. It’s a camouflage I am grateful for.
By the looks of the humans around me—their self-operating carriages, their (lack of) clothes, peculiar gadgets that show moving pictures and play bizarre music—I think I would attract too much attention with my armour-dress and ominous-looking steed.
After two days of riding, we stop at a quaint farming town farther down the coast. It’s the prime place for me to test myself.
Farms surround us, cultivating beans, peanuts, and—my hands tighten around the reins—grapes. A fire ignites within me, and I suddenly want to see the vineyards wither to nothing.
I decide on the small town.
Shadow trots along at his own pace to the nearest farm. He reads my mind, he knows me so well. It’s a vineyard.
I stay mounted on my steed as we wander through the vineyard. The sharp, sour smell of the grapes swirls distant memories in me—some, long forgotten, others to be forgotten. Sorrow carves a hole where my heart should be.
“Here.” My voice has hardened, as has my face. “Right here.”
Shadow’s hooves flatten against the dirt, stopping between two rows of grapevines. I dismount, and my bare feet slap against the packed dirt. I curl my toes, feeling the earth mould to me. A shiver runs down my spine.
It’s the closest sensation to pleasure I’ve had in many missions.
I stroll ahead, placing one foot in front of the other, precisely. My eyes flutter shut and I spread my arms to feel the world around me.
The smooth flesh of a ripe grape grazes my fingertip. Then, another. And more. My head lolls back, and I stretch my arms out as far as I can. Grapes rub over my palms, now. They touch me, I touch them. My thoughts shift to disease, to dehydration, to decay.
As my fingertips take their final touches, I feel fruit shrivel against my skin.
The grapes die.
“You have not lost your touch,” Shadow tells me. “Had you expected to?”
A blissful breath whispers from my lips. With a dazed smile, I turn to face him.
Shadow, in all his grey glory, stands proudly amidst the ruins of a once-lush vineyard. It’s now crippled.
My smile grows at the sight.
The vines are brown and brittle, the leaves have shrivelled and sunken in on themselves. Some have collapsed to the dead dirt beneath us. Grapes don’t sour my nostrils anymore, but the smell of dead crops tickles me.
A loud bang rattles the air. I have heard that sound before. It’s familiar to me.
Frowning, I turn to the source.
At the house ahead, looking over the vineyard, is a man with a rifle in his hands. He cocks it. I can see from where I stand in the ruins of his farm.
He aims it at me.
Shadow gallops towards me. The man pulls the trigger.
A blast.
I’m swept up onto my steed before the bullet hits me. It zips by us and smacks into a dead grapevine post. I smirk at it, then back at the farmer.
On my steed, I am invisible. The farmer stumbles off his porch, aiming the gun from one spot to another. He’s lost me, and I can see by the wrinkled lines on his face that he is wondering if he even saw me at all.
I tug the reins.
We ride out of the barren farm, leaving only the echoes of my laughter behind.
Chapter 3
“Can you feel them yet?”
My eyes roll to the back of my head. “No, Shadow. If I felt them, you would have felt them, too.”
Shadow shakes his head, as if trying to whip off fleas.
I arch my brow at him. “What are you doing?”
Shadow stills. He blinks at me, two blinks, three. “I wondered …” he hesitates. “I was only ensuring that our connections are still in place.”
“Shadow, you eager steed.” I flick my hand lazily. “You should focus only on our duty. Not theirs, or when they will awake.”
He knows this. I know this. But what we also both know is that he thinks of them because I do. Death and his steed, Scythe. A smouldering pit lies within me, somewhere between my gut and heart, and there it burns. Waiting. Always.
Each time Death awakes, the pit flames into a fire—and it consumes me. I fight it, each time. Most times, I’m successful. But Shadow was made without my stubbornness.
There’s a saying I once heard. I liked it. It reminds me of myself.
Heav'n has no rage like love to hatred turn'd; Nor Hell a fury, like a woman scorn'd.
Only, I alter it to a Horsewoman scorned.
And scorned me is what he did. Death scorned me, abandoned me, and destroyed me.
“Concentrate.” Shadow’s voice takes a haughty pitch. Sulking.
He does that at times, after I bruise his little ego.
Who is most human now, Shadow?
If Shadow suspects my thoughts, he doesn’t react. Instead, he’s quiet as I sit on the grass with my legs folded under me. I rest my bottom on the heels of my feet and close my eyes.
The soil is hard and cracked as I dig my fingers into it. Earth is hostile in this part of the world. But humans are more hostile.
Shadow stomps his hoof, breaking my focus. I glare at him over my shoulder, but he looks upwards and pretends not to notice.
“Vindictive pony,” I say.
Affronted, he gapes at me. But the offence fizzles into a false innocence.
With a huff, I turn back to face the meadow. Daisies plague the field and, in the breeze, their petals wave at me. I graze my hands over the grass, searching for the touch of moisture.
I don’t find it, but something finds me.
“Yo! Look!”
My head stays bowed, but I glare across the field from beneath my lashes.
Humans stumble across the meadow. Four of them. The vilest sort, too. Boys.
“Shall we move on?” whispers Shadow. He creeps closer to me, but his stormy grey eyes are glued to the band of boys headed our way.
“Hey! What’re you doin’ out here?” A boy who carries bottled drinks in a paper casing waves his free hand at me. “Helloooo?”
I watch them draw nearer. I am Poison as much as I am Pestilence. And I smell it on them.
Disease.
Poison.
Toxicity.
And it’s not just the alcohol that seeps from their stinky pores. It’s the thoughts in their minds and the intentions in their shared glances.
They think I am their prey.
“I’m not going anywhere,” I growl back at Shadow.
He stays behind me, tense, prepared to gallop off when I command it.
The boy with the bottles is first to stagger close. He drops the bottles to the grass and crouches down before m
e, his straggly brown hair tied into a bun. A half-empty bottle hangs limp in his loose grasp.
My eyes follow the orange-haired one who strolls around me, slowly, as though he thinks himself stealth.
Two more of them, both blondes, loiter a bit behind their leader—bottle-boy—but they show no hesitance. Their hooded eyes merely betray intoxication and their wicked smiles reveal their support.
Days before, I had wondered how long I had slept. But now, I realise it doesn’t matter.
Man hasn’t changed, no matter the time that has passed.
“What you wearin’ that for?” Bottle-Boy reaches forward and yanks a slice of my armour. “You into that cosplay stuff?”
I hiss and whack his hand away.
The orange-haired boy roars a laugh. I look over my shoulder at him; he stands near Shadow, who won’t take his gaze off me.
“I like ‘em fiery,” Bottle-Boy tells me. His vicious smile stays intact. “And I like ‘em when they fight.”
My hands slide across the dirt as I lean closer to him. A wicked smile curves my lips.
“If that’s true,” I whisper, “you’re going to love me.”
I spit in his face.
Giving me barely enough time to laugh at his stupefied look, he lunges at me.
I land on my back with a thud. He scrambles to straddle me, his hands grabbing at my armour. Before he can get a good grip, Shadow kicks back his hoof. It whacks Bottle-Boy’s head so hard that the blow knocks him off of me.
I roll onto my side. Shadow charges at the orange one.
The two blondes advance on me. One unbuckles his belt, but I only grin at him. He whips it out of its loops and raises it, as if to strike me. My old master springs to mind. These boys remind me of him.
“Silly little humans,” I croon.
My fingers dive into the cracked soil and grip. I release it—all of it.
Poison pulses through me and leaks into the soil. I watch it. Blackness spreading across the brown, dark pus oozing from the cracks. Daisies whither. Grass browns and wilts. And it reaches them.
A cry tears through the belt-yielding boy. The belt hits the soil as he drops to his knees.
The other tries to flee—he turns and runs, but barely takes two strides before it latches onto his ankle. My disease wraps around them both. Their veins blacken, pus pours from fresh boils on their skin.
Shadow’s roar demands my attention. I look to him; he’s charging at the orange boy, still. But he’s turned him around, and he chases him back to me.
My steed. My Shadow.
With a grunt, I yank my hands from the earth and stand. The blondes twitch on the ground, discoloured foam oozes from their gaping mouths. I spare them a smarmy glance before I welcome the orange boy. Right into my arms.
I cage him to me. “Humans like you,” I say, “are the reason I am here.”
He fights, he writhes against me and thinks his human muscle matches my strength. We flip over and smack to the ground, where I pin him down.
Horror. That’s what I see in his eyes as he looks at me. Pure, unfiltered horror.
My heart warms at the sight and I part my chapped lips. Smoke comes from them. Slowly, at first. It seeps out like the smoke from a pipe. But then it billows, fast and wild. The grey vapour lunges into his mouth, down his throat.
Orange-Boy gurgles on it. He squirms and chokes on the smoke of my death.
Soon, he stops struggling. And I am left with one more. Bottle-Boy.
He lies on his side. Thick, fresh blood smears the side of his face. Shadow’s aim was perfect—right above the temple.
“What do you think, Shadow?” I ask as I climb off the dead boy. “I have played with smoke. I have dallied with disease. I even destroyed a vineyard. But I haven’t yet tried fever.”
Shadow advances on the bleeding boy. Hatred burns in his grey eyes as he looks to me. “Might I?”
In answer, I give a shrug.
Shadow takes his time.
His razor-sharp hooves leave gashes all over. For a while, I’m entertained, but then the bud within me blossoms into a flower of yearning—it finally happened.
Shadow stills, towering over the bloody body he has finished butchering.
Our gazes meet.
The pit of embers within me erupts into an all-consuming blaze.
Death is awake. And for the first time in centuries, he calls to me.
426 B.C.; Athens.
Some say Death is one of many demons. Others think him a grim reaper. And the old book preaches that he is an Archangel. None of those theories matter, not to Hella, because she knows Death. He visits her.
It began in the vineyard at night.
With most of the slaves and household taken by the plague, Hella plucked grapes in the vineyard alone until her calloused fingers wept and her tired legs threatened to buckle. She lugged the wicker basket full of engorged, purple grapes alongside her.
Soon, her body ached for rest.
Ever since she was stolen from her clan across the sea, Hella found hope in the stars. So she sank down and tilted her head back, gaze fixed above.
The stars looked the same as they did above her homeland, and to Hella, that meant something. Gods among them, watching over the world below. Heavens winking their futures. It meant something, she was sure of it. Because hope was all she had.
Before Hella could get back to work, she felt it. A sudden thickness in the air, one that robbed her of breath; an unfamiliar fragrance that tickled her nose and made her heart falter.
Her instincts churned to life within her, and sent the same sensation through her body as when she saw her owner with a whip in hand. Danger was near.
Chills rippled through her.
Hella lowered her head, slowly, and brought her gaze back down to the vineyard. She squinted down the lane between grapevines.
A tidy rosebush rustled ahead.
Hella slid onto her knees, narrowed eyes on the bush. Moonlight danced over the blossomed roses, beneath the high-stretched grapevines, and sent a shudder through her. Beside the rosebush was a pair of pale, bare feet.
Hella stared at the feet.
Beads of black marked them, like smears of tar. Her heart jumped up to her throat.
Slowly, she lifted her gaze from the feet. Legs, covered in black fabric torn at the hem, long and pale. The black wrap ended at the hips, where hard skin, like marble, stretched up from.
Tremors began to shake Hella, her heart raced faster the higher upwards she looked. Scars marked the torso, white and sharp in the glow of the moonlight. A tattered black robe hung from broad shoulders; it dripped an inky substance. And his face…
Hella gasped and scrambled back.
She noticed the eyes first. Never before had she seen such pits of darkness, eyes that reminded her of bottomless wells and pools of spilt ink. They seemed to ripple the way the sea does on a dark night on a long voyage, a veil that shields the depths of secrets and mysteries.
Those eyes looked at her from a man’s face, a man who was a stranger to her. Hair blacker than his cloak curled around his ears and brushed above his eyebrows; the pallor of his skin shone like moonlight against the dark.
She didn’t know whether to run or throw herself at his feet.
He took a step towards her.
The bare sole of his foot flattened on grapes; their guts squished out from the sides. As he drew closer, the moonlight touched his face. And it was then that Hella knew, he was not human.
A shadow of a skull flickered behind his pale face. He pulled up his hood, shielding himself from the moon, and with that one fluid movement, the skull vanished.
“Wh…what—” she stammered. Her hands and feet pushed against the dirt, dragging herself away from him. “What are you?”
He stepped closer again. She scrambled back.
Hella sucked in a breath, prepared to scream, but it choked inside of her. He stopped at the wicker basket and crouched beside it.
“I’
ve always liked grapes,” he said, and ran his fingers over the purple fruit.
Hella noticed his fingernails, black and course with pointed ends.
He pinched a succulent grape, bulging against its skin, and brought it to his lips. “May I?”
Hella nodded, a numb gesture. Her wide eyes stayed glued to his as he bit into the grape. It tore between his teeth, his dark gaze never leaving hers.
He finished the grape and stood. Hella arched her neck to stare up at him, towering above her.
She blinked.
And he vanished.
That was the night Hella first met with Death, but he did not take her.
Chapter 4
For the sixth time, I tell Shadow, “I don’t want to see him.”
My raspy voice carries the weariness my steed instils in me.
“Famine hasn’t given me my mission yet. Until then, we’ll wander—study the humans, their methods, their immunities. I can’t have another failure like Varicella. They named it chickenpox.”
Shadow snorts; his hot breath puffs in a cloud before his nostrils. The night brings cold, and while we don’t suffer from it, we feel it nonetheless.
“You will never let that go, will you?” he asks, though it isn’t much of a question.
“When humans name your plague after chickens, it’s hard to ignore.”
A laugh rumbles through him.
I bobble above him, my grip loose on the reins. “And it’s a fiasco Famine hasn’t forgotten,” I add. “I’d be surprised if she doesn’t breathe down my neck this entire mission.” My nose raises in the air and I imitate Famine’s all-knowing, arrogant voice, “What are your plans, Pessie? I suggest one of my own successful plagues, as I myself was the first Pestilence and War and Famine and Death. I was once all Horseriders, thus I know best. What is the incubation period, Pessie? Do you really think that’s the best choice, Pessie?”
I make a sickened noise at the back of my throat.
“She was fond of your Black Plague,” reasons Shadow.
My face turns smug. “It was my best, yet.”
Smugness caves to annoyance. My upper lip twitches and my eyes roll upwards.
Feared Fables Box Set: Dark and Twisted Fairy Tale Retellings, (Feared Fables Box Sets Book 1) Page 33