by T. A. Miles
He dropped the tarp he had brought with him onto the tacky earthen floor. Across the space were bodies, and body parts. The butcher himself was not present. Renmyr had said that he wouldn’t be; that he had …things to do elsewhere. The man had made quite a mess before going. And now, Ergen had to clean it up, and bring it to Deya. She would need people with her …when she got well again.
His mind seemed to twitch at the idea that she could ever be well again. With that spasm, he simultaneously declared that it was not all that terrible. That none of this was as horrific as it looked …and smelled …
There must have been half the town scattered about. Well more than Ergen had claimed on his own. And to leave them all lying about …anyone left alive was going to smell so much death. What put a demon lord in a sudden rush to make ruin?
A strained laugh escaped him. When he heard the shuffle of someone’s feet, he swiftly turned on Guidry. “Gods damn it—you old bastard! Didn’t I tell you to stay outside, until I was ready for you?”
The codger merely surveyed the room, reaching in his coat pocket—probably for that damned pipe of his—and said, “Seems to me that this ought to have been reported to my office.”
He was trying to reenact his previously normal life and station. They all did—Deya even tried to behave as his wife some days.
“Isn’t this all very strange?” Ergen said, speaking to no one, really. And then to the old constable, he snapped, “Start collecting all of this mess.”
Guidry found his pipe. It was broken and he was chewing on the splintered end. He would quickly cut his tongue or his lips, but he wouldn’t care in his present condition. “I think that I ought to go back and check on those priests.”
“And you shall,” Ergen answered. “But only after we’ve completed this task. Now, do you recall the flask that I gave you at the house? The one I said to drink from …for your pain.”
“It had a foul taste,” Guidry complained.
“Yes. Did you drink all of it?”
“Can’t say as it was satisfying at all,” he continued to mumble. “Didn’t do a damned thing for my joints.”
“Yes,” Ergen shouted in frustration, “but did you drink all of it!”
Guidry reached into his pocket and produced the small glass container. It appeared empty.
“Good,” Ergen concluded. “Now, gather all of this up, and then you may go to the pretty red that you’ve been admiring all this time. Make sure to remind him that he should come to the house. Tell him that they forgot to interview my wife.”
•—•
Nightfall had fully settled before Korsten and Merran reached the lower shelf of the crest. The peculiar lights had swelled for a time, then dissipated several minutes ago. It occurred to Korsten fully that the day had been spent in its entirety. He might have looked ahead to informing the local officials that no demon had been discovered on the plateau, and that Feidor’s Crest had been spared the fate of other towns in the northern reaches, but he knew that he would be met with contradiction of some kind. It first took the form of the lights, which they could not investigate quickly enough, and it manifested to something more tangible when two men arrived on the path to intercept them. Their manner was of rush and alarm.
“Screams,” the first of the pair announced, steadying his horse to wait for them. “At the governor’s.”
“We’re under attack by some beast,” the other declared.
“Did you see it?” Merran asked them, negotiating Erschal between the two men, so that he and Korsten would have a lead on them, going into potential hazard.
One of the men shook his head. “No.”
“What of the lights?” Korsten inquired. “They were a peculiar shade of green.”
The two men looked at each other, then back. “No lights, sir.”
Korsten followed after Merran. “Where’s Guidry?”
“Went to the deputy governor’s place,” one of them answered. “He sent us here to ask you to meet him, which was when we heard the sounds coming from the estate.”
The other concluded, “Thought we’d better get you two first.”
“You should return to town,” Merran decided. “And stay there.”
The men agreed, and turned their mounts around. It was not surprising that they wanted nothing to do with the horror one of the Vadryn could inspire. Without knowing for certain what had transpired, Korsten hoped that the pair wouldn’t find their courage on the way down the path and attempt to join he and Merran. If the target was the governor’s estate, then it would be safer for them in town.
Korsten and Merran made haste, but it wasn’t possible to run the horses until the trail broadened nearer to the base of the crest. Looking toward the estate, there were yet no traces of the odd lights, and there were no cries to be heard.
•—•
The cries from the guardhouse and the yards had only just ended. Thaylen stood at the base of the central stair, a sword held loosely in his hand. The nerve to grip the hilt had a slow, tidal pulse; coming strong enough to drive back the earth, and then drawing away, until the remains of his strength amounted to a thin coating of dissipating foam upon his consciousness.
The green lanterns in the woods had been of visitors, yes, though no one had seen the individuals behind the light. It was only the glow, followed by the sounds of rending, of screaming, and of dying.
Thaylen’s staff were either gathered in the front hall to face the intruders with him, else they were upstairs protecting his family, else they were hidden or fled from the house altogether. If anyone had gone outdoors, Thaylen imagined that they were dead or dying. He imagined that indoors would soon offer the same fate.
“Where are those two priests now?” one of his men demanded, an undercurrent of fear beneath the words.
“We sent them to the crest to look for the demon,” another reminded. Terror was equally present in his voice.
And that much was true. They had received agents of Vassenleigh into their town, because something was present—whether madness or evil. They all had believed the source of that something had been lurking well away from their homes between attacks—hours upward, along the crest itself. They had been led to believe that, perhaps by whatever horror had been lurking unseen within their town all along. And now, the first and only hope of protection that had entered Feidor’s Crest since the start of the misery and terror was well out of range of hearing their screams.
The futility was overwhelming. Suddenly, Thaylen had no desire to die away from his wife and children. He turned from the front doors and walked up the stairs with as much haste as his body would allow him. His current stress layered pain upon his bones. It jarred the sword from his grasp before long, and he left the weapon where it fell.
“Father, what are you doing?” his eldest asked him. He was on his way down, armed with his own sword.
“Go to your wife and child,” Thaylen instructed, taking his son’s arm, and using his strength as leverage to climb further up the stairs, toward his own wife and his youngest child.
“They’re safely locked in their rooms. I’ll see you up to Mother and Elwain.”
Thaylen waved him off. “I’ll make it. Go …do what you must.”
Continuing up the stairs, Thaylen heard no further words from his son. Only the sound of his sword being collected off the steps. It would do no good.
The journey to Elwain’s room happened in a series of steps that were neither felt nor remembered. His wife met him in the doorway. He took her hand, and looked past her, to the bed. Words of worry and panic were delivered by his wife, but he heard none of them. Instead, he heard only the whisper of his son’s voice, for the first time in months.
“He’s coming,” Elwain said. He turned his head on the pillow, making direct eye contact with Thaylen. “Those priests can’t do anything about it, and you’re all going to die.
”
•—•
Through the eyes of the boy, doom was visible. There was no tucking further into hiding, though it tried. The Master would see it anyway. The Master knew already.
Hiding in the bed was not a clever idea. Hiding in the bed had brought them and now it had brought him.
In the boy’s ears, the screams were harsh, abrasive against their delicate structure. It tucked itself just a bit more, though kept a hold on the boy’s essence. The boy could see things now. He could see his father’s expression of shock because it had spoken to him. It would have spoken to him more, once the boy was fully his.
Though pretty, the boy was not simple. Strength was needed to lay within him, so it had held him down. It had pinned him, and it would grow stronger in time.
But there was no more time.
The darkness of him overtook the darkness of night. The ancientness of his power reached into the walls of the house, beating on them.
The woman shrieked. A body was broken in a flourish of terror and destruction, then flung away.
The father of the boy stood paralyzed by fear. The flavor of it trickled in through the boy’s senses, tempting it to reach out. It waited.
The father was taken by the face and dragged into the room, to the bed.
It waited.
The father was dropped onto the floor.
It waited.
He leaned over the boy, and stroked his pretty face …and drew a line across his chest.
The blood swelled slowly across its perception.
It reached for it, and he took hold.
“You’re going to do something for me,” the Master said.
Five
The manor stood enfolded in the denser fog which belonged to the night’s early hours. The gate leading onto the grounds was oddly hung. Korsten and Merran had departed from the estate by way of it during the day. It had been opened for them and shut behind them by its attendant. Now, it stood partially open, with no attendant in sight.
They slowed for a moment to assess any immediate threat, of which there appeared none. Korsten drew a breath, held it for a moment of precious denial, then came to terms with the likely discoveries to be made on the other side of the wall.
“Ready?” Merran asked, as if he had purposefully observed Korsten’s reaction.
Korsten gave a nod, and they proceeded beyond the hung gate, into darkness that required them to recast Lantern spells that had been let go during their rush from the lower section of the crest. A luminous white glow preceded them across the grounds. For several yards in, that light revealed nothing untoward, but then came a shambling silhouette, and the slip of Merran’s sword from its sheath.
Korsten left the first ghoul to him, but readied his own blade, now that they were certain, conjuring it from magic that was nested within his right hand. The technique and material were yet new to the Order, and Korsten was among only a few who had been assigned to utilize both thus far. He had found a multitude of uses and forms for it, some more dangerous than others. A short, traditional blade of silver had been lately given to him as well, though he tended to leave it with the minimal amount of equipment Onyx carried more often than not. He had quickly grown to favor the malleable weapon, in spite of the risks that came with carrying it.
Two unsteady forms loitered along the path leading across the manor grounds. Korsten made sure to stay on one side of the pair, rather than to ride between them. Any damage done to Onyx by contaminated individuals could fester, since there was little protection beyond armor to be granted animals even as specially bred and raised as those from Vassenleigh. Since becoming a priest, and learning the gesticulation of complicated spells, Korsten had acquired very sure dexterity with both hands, so he didn’t worry which side to start on, in relation to preferences or strength. The right was a clearer route, so he took it, and used his left hand to cut down the first of the two ghouls. The husk of a person went down with some ease, but its companion considered itself alerted, and made a determined path in Korsten’s direction.
Guiding Onyx on a wide path back around to where the two had been lingering, Korsten observed the ghoul struggling to compensate. He took the time to align himself better with the recently made beast, and also took the opportunity to glance about the area in search of anymore that would be of immediate concern. In the near distance, Merran’s Lantern spell trailed the other priest’s movements, as he contended with his own opponents while still atop Erschal.
Korsten charged at the creature in front of him, knocking back its raised arms with his blade. One of its limbs—for now, weakened by the newness of its state—was cleanly severed and the other bent back in a way that would not allow its further use. The lesser beast that had only hours ago been a living person, continued toward what it now perceived as an enemy and a potential source of sustenance for its new hunger.
Drawing Onyx to a halt, Korsten faced the steed toward the ghoul. With no desire to continue hacking at the creature, he withdrew his sword and determined to silence his opponent with a spell instead. It required him to drop his Lantern for the moment, but it would be easily summoned again.
Korsten held his hand out, toward the contaminated remains of a woman who had probably been among the house staff. Her simple dress and apron were colored nearly black with the amount of blood that had run down her side. This state was perhaps the most depressing to witness; the confused loitering between dying and becoming something new. In this stage, it was a grim caricature of life.
The spell Korsten meant to cast required only minimal focus. He applied it, swiftly drawing forward energy which first centered in his palm, and which shot into the air immediately afterward. A tail of light streamed after the dense concentration of magic. It collided against the only object in its path.
The ghoul came apart, like a doll. There was little blood left to it, only pieces held together by the toxin of the demon that had attacked it.
The sound of the Blast spell would potentially draw others, but Korsten had no fear of that, since there were none that he or Merran intended to leave behind. There were none that they could leave behind. The longer one of the Vadryn’s victims were left to fester, the more like the Vadryn they would become. The demon’s toxin would eventually become as blood for the new form the victim would take, transferring its darkness to every aspect and twisting it beyond recognition.
Thankfully, the attack on the governor’s estate had occurred recently. In a technical sense, it may have been too recent for the victims to have been wandering, but there may have been some other element that had agitated them. Or it may have been that the demon responsible was yet present, inspiring its recent victims to stir. For the time being, Korsten saw no other ghouls in the yard and the movement of Merran’s Lantern indicated that his partner was coming toward him, having finished with his own opponents.
Korsten looked to the house. The entire structure appeared dark from his vantage, shrouded by night and in presence.
•—•
Thaylen watched the drifting color in the darkness below him, like a red flower touching the surface of a black lake, pinned by a narrow shaft of moonlight. His hand twitched as he felt that he could reach down and take it.
“I remember your name,” he said, and speaking the words felt like claws pulling at the edges of his mouth to form them. “I remember all of you.”
His chin felt tacky and stretched taut by the blood drying there. With each breath, the taste and scent of death drew across his tongue. But beneath him was life that had yet to be spent or spoiled. It was the glory of the Malakym, he recalled thinking once before.
And that was when a voice said, “No. You’re wrong.”
The voice reminded him of the hand at the back of his head and neck. And then there was nothing more to be reminded of.
•—•
Glass shattered, in
spiring Merran to draw short of the house. Korsten moved himself and Onyx closer to it, allowing the debris to rain past him as shards were cast into the darkness. A form fell with them. It struck the pavement wetly and moved no further.
Merran and Korsten looked at each other beneath the combined light of their Lanterns, across the spread of glass and blood. They allowed themselves only that brief moment of pause before giving their attention fully to the house.
The window above framed the body of a young man in a night shirt. He looked down upon the damage with no expression visible in his eyes, but with his mouth spreading into a thin smile while he had their notice.
Merran wasted no time. He dropped his sword and motioned the necessary spell to release the boy from the demon. The magic shot from his hands the instant he brought them together, sending a ripple of colorless, lightless energy up to the window where it collided with the possessed. The body was struck from its perch with force and sent further into the room.
Thankfully, Korsten anticipated Merran’s decision and had already stood himself upon Onyx’s back, giving further reach to his leap onto the building. He followed vines and protruding aspects of the architecture up to the window. If the Release was to be successful, it was imperative that someone be present to attend to the body immediately, whether to protect the individual or end their suffering in such a way that the Vadryn could no longer have access to the vessel.
Merran left Korsten to climb. He dismounted and collected his sword, then headed for the nearest door, which turned out to be at the front of the house. The main doors stood open, painting a clear path toward the central stairs. Merran ran across to them without delay. His Lantern had been dropped in order to cast the Release, and he made no effort to manifest the light again. The steps branched at the middle and Merran went immediately left, toward the room with the broken window.
He heard no sound of confrontation yet, but that only meant that the demon was undecided on its approach to reclaiming the body, or it had perceived too much opposition and fled in order to make another claim elsewhere. The latter was doubtful.