Ragged Heroes

by Andy Peloquin

  Behind her the old woman gathered the villagers. Ha, old woman. She was what, perhaps five years Krestan’s senior? And a bit of a sledge, that one, with her beady little judging eyes. Krestan’s a man’s name, my ass. Her name, no matter what name it happened to be, was that of a woman’s. Blossom was a woman’s horse. At her side was a woman’s sword. And tracking down a vicious creature was a woman’s job.

  She quickly followed he creature’s tracks on foot, which came from, and to, the west. The dead man had walked down the center of the thoroughfare, but the creature had circled around one peasant hut after another, as if it stalked its victim like a human would. The shape of its feet was uncomfortably human like as well. If humans had five-inch claws like a bear.

  That young woman, what was her name? Yully? She had promise. The way she held her shit together while her eviscerated father lay before her was downright impressive, though she had a hard lesson ahead of her. Grief had a way of seeping out in unexpected ways and inopportune times, and sometimes you just had to let the tears flow no matter who watched or judged. It was a lesson Krestan was sure the young woman could handle. She was a badass bitch in the making and had the fire in her eyes like a true Ashosi. Not that any of the warriors remained.

  At the edge of the village the man’s and creature’s tracks converged at the doorway of another shoddily built hut. Honestly, the people in the south had no sense of style. As if abject poverty and living every day on the edge of death was an excuse for not taking the time to better their living arrangements. Sarcasm aside, if the nobles had spent even a single day living like the people they condemned perhaps there wouldn’t have been an uprising, and she’d still be teaching at the academy.

  The man had come out of the hut and the creature followed, then it came back, went inside, and left again.

  Knowing what, if not who, she would find, Krestan eased the door open. A lantern cast light on the remains of a middle-aged woman in a shredded nightshirt, eviscerated like all the other victims.

  The rancid odor of the creature, like a cross between a goat buck’s musk, sour beer, and asparagus piss, wafted out like vapers of an outhouse. She braved the putrid bouquet and entered. Untended lanterns made her eye twitch, and no nasty smell would keep her from blowing this one out. Careful where she placed her feet, she stepped over the body. On the corner of the bed was a set of hobbles and a buggy whip.

  At least the mystery of why Yully’s father hadn’t gone home last night had been solved. If one could choose an activity to engage in the night before being ripped to bits, a rousing game of Breaking the Mare would be it.

  Krestan continued tracking south. There was at least one more body to find. In Bamico, and every village before that, she had arrived days, or hours, after the final slaughter. Same pattern each time. Kill one, a week later kill three or four, then two days later, everyone. Why those numbers, and why that interval? Answer that, and the creature’s motivation would be revealed. Find what drives a thing and the means of its destruction would soon follow. But other than its likely size, and that it walked on two feet, two enormously clawed feet, nothing was known.

  Circling around the edge of the village, she beheld a sight she didn’t expect. The tracks went into another of the crappy little huts, that wasn’t a surprise, but didn’t come out again.

  Finally, after months of hunting, she had found it. The beast was there, in that hut. Krestan felt her body vibrating with tension. She took several deep breaths to calm her nerves, then drew her sword. The rain picked up again, soaking her hair.

  With her left hand she reached for her second sword, only to find that she had left it somewhere. On her saddle maybe? Not likely, she never kept it there. Did she leave it at the last village? No, that wasn’t right either. Oh yes, she stopped carrying it years ago, and she did start leaving it tied to the side of the saddle. Fighting double swords became near impossible after she lost the smaller fingers on her left hand. Well, not lost exactly. She knew right where they went.

  Oh, to be young and decadactyl again.

  Krestan swallowed down her excitement, and chocked back the fear, as she reached the door to the hut. After a moment of indecision, she tossed the cloak to the ground.

  She hitched up one leg, ready to kick the door in, when her back gave a little pop, and she nearly crumpled from the pain. Of all the shit timing, now, now, her back takes a sabbatical? She crumpled against the side of the hut as quietly as a crippled old lady could, propped up by one shoulder. Eyes closed, she rested the side of her head on the wall.

  Now or never, Kres. Pain is temporary. Let that beast slaughter another village and the guilt will be forever.

  Bracing against the pain, she straightened her back, only letting out a small groan. Quite impressive, if she did say so herself. Kicking the door in was out of the question. Next best option was to ease it open with the tip of her sword.

  By some strange twist of fate, the door swung on its hinges without a sound. Lucky day.

  Damn it, inside was another untended lantern. Krestan’s eye twitched. She gave the owner a pass due to her being dead in the middle of the room.

  Just visible from behind the disheveled bed was the object of her year’s long hunt.

  ***

  “Hear that folks?” Daireh’s elderly voice still maintained a scrap of its former commanding power. “Take stock of your families. Who isn’t here? No, Shandi, don’t run off looking for Mendin, the Ashosi said the creature might still be in the village. See, she’s right there anyway. Mendin, get to your mother’s side, thata girl.” She turned to Yulich and quieted her voice. “What about your father, Yully? Can we cover him now? He wouldn’t want everyone to stare at him like this.”

  “He always said that as long as people looked at him, no matter the reason, he was happy.” He would do anything to make people laugh. With him, or at him, made no difference. “But no, I suppose this isn’t what he had in mind when he said that.” She knew covering him was for her own sake.

  Daireh signaled to her boys, men older that Yulich’s father, and they unfolded a heavy cloth and covered the body with reverence. That was it. Her father was gone. Forever gone. No more late-night talks about the nature of the world. No more of his famous mechoui dinners or malva pudding. No laughing at his own jokes.

  Grief overtook her mind and blurred her vision.

  No more hugs.

  “This isn’t working. Yully, dear, help me gather everyone into the meeting room. It’ll be easier to account for everyone if we can get them to sit instead of running around in the mud. See there, Shandi lost her daughter again. Mendin, get back to your mother and stay there. Don’t make me tell you again.”

  The little girl ran and clung to her mother’s leg like a monkey, wide eyed and in tears from the reprimand. Yulich didn’t blame her, gods knew the old woman could be outright terrifying to the young. Especially when she is barking orders at everyone to get into the meeting room.

  Daireh didn’t need help, she only wanted Yulich to stop obsessing over her loss. Which would have been fine had that been what she was focusing on. An ornate sword handle stuck out of a beat-up scabbard Strapped to the Ashosi’s saddle. Did the legendary hero forget her weapon? What if she finds the creature and can’t defend herself?

  Daireh continued to verbally harass the villagers and, as families filed into the village’s central, and only large, building, panic eased to a more general anxiety. Soon only Yulich and Daireh remained outside.

  The Ashosi was walking to her death. All she had was a cane. Someone had to do something, or she was doomed. They would all be doomed.

  Daireh’s daughter Fenosa, best friend to Yulich’s late mother, slipped and nearly fell in the mud in her haste to reach her mother.

  “Renni and Tanshi are both missing.” She was at the edge of tears. “I can’t lose any more friends. I just can’t.”

  “Calm down, Fenosa. Those two are never up before midday if they can help it. Most likely they d
idn’t hear the commotion this morning and are still asleep.” Daireh was a solid bluffer when it came to games of chance, but even she couldn’t keep the worry from her voice.

  “I have to go find them.” Fenosa wrung her hand together and cast her gaze about, clearly not knowing what to do.

  “No, best to let the Ashosi handle this. No sense getting in her way. Running about in a panic will only make her job harder. I’m sure they are fine.”

  “I hope she finds and kills that thing.” Fenosa wept into her hands.

  “If she doesn’t, I will.” Yulich snatched the sword from its scabbard and followed the tracks Krestan left behind.

  ***

  The creature looked disconcertingly like a woman, though twisted out of proportion by a dark dream. It cowered in the corner, skin drained of all pigment, whiter even than the people to the far north, and sobbed into spindly, blood-covered hands with frightfully long claws. Long stringy white hair hung down to the floor.

  No legend or myth told of any such creature, other than humans, that wept for is actions. They were the only thing she knew that could act completely against their own nature and regret the very action they fought so hard to achieve.

  Pity scratched at Krestan’s heart. Blind crying creatures weren’t normally on her list of things that need to die, though mutilating a slew of villages put it firmly on said list. The contradiction gave her a fraction of hesitation. The creature dropped its hands and sniffed the air, head turning back and forth like a dog seeking a scent. Its tear-filled, vibrant blue eyes fixed on Krestan.

  “Shenka!” It growled as it darted to the center of the room to stand menacingly over the dead body, then sniffed around again. “Shenka nih.” It shook its head.

  Startled, not so much by its ability to talk as what it said, Krestan stepped into the room, sense of danger stifled by wonderment. The language was ancient, though somewhat intelligible to Krestan. In her early scholarly days, back before the rebels burned all places of higher learning, she specialized in dead languages. Having never heard it spoken, translation proved difficult. Nih was a negation, while Shenka meant something like defile, or perhaps desecrate.

  “No worries here, freaky little murder machine,” Krestan soothed as she eased into the room. “I’m not going to defile your kill. Just going to poke this here sword through your neck a little.”

  “Shenka nih. Shenka nih henso.” It flicked the back of its hand at the door. “Henso.”

  “No, I don’t think I’ll leave. Henso nih.”

  It stood up straight and cocked its head, eyeballing Krestan in disbelief. It looked her up and down, hardly acknowledging the sword and knife. It eyes widened, and it pointed at the knotwork on Krestan’s sleeve.

  “Ashosi,” it growled and hunched down in a defensive posture.

  “How do you know what I am?” And why the hostility to her order?

  It kept growling.

  She should kill the genocidal monster, but curiosity overcame her.

  “Ashosi.” Krestan pointed to herself.

  “Ashosi nih,” it sneered. With one hand it reached down and grabbed the remains of the deceased woman’s heart and held it up for Krestan to see. With the other it pointed at itself.

  “Ashosi,” it said, and tossed the heart down.

  What in the name of all fuck was that supposed to mean? She was so baffled by the whole encounter she didn’t notice she had lowered her weapons until the creature leapt at her, claws first.

  It raked the side of her face as she threw herself down and to the side, landing flat on her back with all the grace of an arrow-pierced duck.

  It charged again.

  She lifted and pinwheeled her legs, using the momentum to get back to her feet, just in time to be attacked again.

  Claws dug into her shoulders and teeth sank into her neck. Krestan ignored the pain and stabbed her knife into the creature’s side several times in rapid succession and pulled its long hair to dislodge it from her neck. It responded by shaking its head like a dog, ripping into her flesh. At least it was the side already scarred. The knife caught a rib and the creature howled and thrashed around, wrenching the blood-slick handle from her hand. She ripped back on its hair again, pulling the teeth from her neck.

  They fell to the floor, locked together, each struggling to regain their advantage. They bumped the door closed and knocked the table over, putting out the lantern. Krestan reached for her knife, but her hand slipped down the handle and was sliced open on the blade.

  They somehow tangled themselves up with the dead body. Intestines wrapped around Krestan’s legs. Too slick with blood to hold on, they each gained freedom and scrambled away.

  The creature panted in the corner where it had sat weeping when she arrived. Krestan took the brief respite to allow herself a moment of thankfulness. The lantern could just as easily have caught everything on fire as going out. That’s all she would have needed, a battle to the death while trapped in a fire. Again. Of course, that left them completely in the dark.

  Who builds a hut without windows?

  Darkness wasn’t a problem for Krestan. She had spent most of her waking life after the sun sank below the horizon, chasing monsters that breathed fire, or could stop your heart with a stare, or even bite off two surprisingly important little fingers.

  Krestan felt sick to her stomach. Neither the nrgwenya that burned half her body, nor the kongamato that ate her fingers, had the ability to speak or recognize the Ashosi symbol. Fire and ferocity could be easily overcome. Intelligence mixed with sharp teeth and long claws sapped her confidence. The gaping wound in her neck didn’t exactly bolster her disposition either. She might not make it out of this one. Might already be too late to hope for, with how much blood she had lost and how unlikely she was to find a healer in time.

  As long as she could take out the creature before it killed another village, she would consider her death worth it. She scooted on her butt to put her back against the wall, grabbing a scrap of cloth on the way, probably the dead woman’s shirt, and tried to slow the bleeding from the wound in her neck.

  She marked round one a tie.

  “Ashosi,” the creature said. “Di Ashosi?”

  “Yeah, I’m still here.”

  Words poured out of the creature too fast for Krestan to follow. She could only pick out one here and there. Repeated more than once were words associated with tainted, defilement, abomination. Something about the Ashosi and the word kelneh, evil.

  “Look, I don’t think you’re evil. Don’t believe in evil myself. I’ve seen things that are tragic, devastating, horrific, things that’d make you piss yourself every night from the nightmares.” Her neck throbbed as blood seeped through the cloth. “Well, maybe not give you nightmares. You don’t seem the pissing yourself type.

  “Evil is no more than the hole where we throw the inexplicable tragedies we haven’t the strength to examine. It’s a word that condenses the horrors of the world down to something we can wrap our minds around. Turns it into a singular cosmic force that we can do nothing about.” Here she was, on death’s door still repeating the same lecture she gave every year to new students. “But the world isn’t so small and simple. These things aren’t done because of some singular word, they’re done out of fear, desperation, ignorance, confusion, insecurity, hunger, pain, insanity. Which leads me to a question. Why are you doing this?”

  The door of the hut eased open. Dim light made blinding by its previous contrast filled the room. Yully panted and scanned the room, holding Krestan’s second sword as if she were afraid it would leap out of her hand and cut her tits off.

  “Oh no!” She startled at the sight of the dead woman strewn about the hut, then dropped the weapon when she noticed Krestan and rushed to her side.

  “No, you foolish woman, don’t turn your back on the enemy.”

  “Shenka?” The creature rose unsteadily to its feet, hands pressed tight against the knife wounds to slow the bleeding. It looked at Krestan
and pointed at Yully, then the body, and back to the young woman. “Shenka?” it said again.

  “Is that what killed my father?”

  “Hand me that sword and get hell out of here.” Krestan pressed her back against the wall of the hut to help her to her feet. Yully picked up the sword without taking her eyes from the creature. “Quick, hand it over.” She reached out to the young woman, dropping the saturated cloth from her neck. Blood flowed freely again. Not much longer now and she wouldn’t have the strength to fight.

  The creature staggered forward, growling and grimacing.

  “It killed my father. It killed Renni and Tanshi.”

  “Yully, that ain’t no normal creature. It’s smart and knows how to fight. Clear out and let me handle it.”

  “No.” The sword dropped low as she struggled to keep the heavy blade pointed at the creature. “You’re in no shape, Krestan. I’ll handle this.”

  “Ashosi,” the creature said, standing up straight and smiling.

  Yulich raised the sword over her head and lunged forward like a mad woman. The creature easily side stepped the attack and slashed the young woman with its claws. Yulich crumpled to the ground grasping at her throat as blood gushed out in thick forceful spurts.

  “NO!” Krestan jumped at the creature in a guilt-fueled rage and raked at its eyes. It struck her on the side of the head, knocking her back to the ground to lie next to the dying girl. Her vision blacked for a moment and sounds came as if from far away.

  The creature sat on Yulich’s thighs and ripped into her abdomen, pulling out her intestines like rope from a bag. It reached in and pulled out her liver, shredded it with its claws, then went back for her heart.

  “Shanti,” it said again as it wept and crushed the heart in one hand.

  Krestan took the opportunity of its distraction to snatch her knife from the creature’s side. It twisted sideways and grabbed at the wound, bringing its throat within striking distance. With the last of her strength she drove the blade into the neck of the creature. It made a satisfying gurgling sound as it slumped to the ground.