by Tom Lloyd
Fear
the
Reaper
Tom Lloyd
kristell-ink.com
Copyright © 2015 Tom Lloyd-Williams
Tom Lloyd-Williams asserts his moral right to be identified as the author of this book.
All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
Paperback ISBN 978-1-909845-75-6
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Cover design by Ken Dawson
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For Fiona, Ailsa and Cadfael
HIS EYES SHONE with starlight. The raging night was his mantle and jagged constellations crowned him. The dead lay prostrate at his feet. The living were supplicants pleading with him from bended knee, their weapons discarded like offerings. Some begged for their lives, others were too dazed by his savage appearance and only moaned prayers to the God or asked why over and over.
The enormous dark man said nothing in reply. He had no mouth, his ears were ragged stubs only. Greyed vertical lines of scarring haphazardly crossed where his mouth would have been, stitches without a wound, while his clothes were ragged strips of dark cloth like a mass of soiled bandages. Knots tying them studded his body; his head, hands and feet the only parts uncovered, all of which were gnarled and crusted with dirt. In his hand was a long axe with a curved black shaft and a shining half-moon head. Only the starlight in his eyes showed he was not a corpse, not one of the dead horrors that walked the distant dreamscapes of this world.
‘Take ’em,’ sobbed the leader of the slavers.
He was a great bear of a man with a hanging belly and wild, black beard, but stood more than a foot shorter than their attacker. He pointed towards the slaves, huddled in terror beside the ruined wagon they had trailed behind for so many days through this world and the last.
‘Take ’em, curse you – they’re yours. Just spare us!’
Without warning, one of the guards broke and sprinted off into the dark back the way they had come. His howls echoed around the boulders forming this huge gorge, a jagged sound in the blustery breeze coming off the far mountains. The mouthless man did not follow or turn his head – his cold burning gaze remained on the leader of the slavers even as he threw one arm abruptly out. His black axe flew through the night with impossible speed, hurled with unnatural force to fell the fleeing man.
The slavers cringed at the crunch of metal on flesh. There were no cries from the victim, no sounds at all above the whine of the wind. The slavers watched the mouthless man fearfully. His axe was gone, his hands empty of weapons, yet only one found the strength to jump up and draw a blade. The slaver charged with a terror-laden wail, drunk with fear and horror after days in this world of dead things.
His first swipe was wild and premature, but the mouthless man did nothing. Not even his eyes moved as the slaver attacked, that first blow passing an inch from his scarred ebony throat. A second slash followed and the stranger stepped into the blow as though to embrace the slaver. The knife only scraped the mouthless man’s knotted collar as their bodies came together, but a scream escaped the slaver’s lips. His comrades saw his body judder and convulse under the stranger’s grasp, a long arm wrapped tight around his back. His arms fell limp, his legs went slack and the knife fell harmlessly. The pair stayed like that for two more heartbeats, as close and intent as new lovers, then the mouthless man released his grip and the slaver fell.
The remaining men whimpered like beaten dogs as they saw their comrade collapse, a ruined thing. The stranger’s dark hand was now coated black in the swirling dust of night and held something in his fingers. The cavity of their comrade’s chest was studded white in the starlight and they all realised it was a mangled heart in the mouthless man’s hand.
He dropped it without regard, blood trickling from his fingers. Reaching out his arm once more, a black blur of movement slapped into his palm as the axe returned – star-lit blade also now marked with dark trails of blood.
‘Demon,’ spat the leader. He slowly got to his feet again and wiped his torn bottom lip with a filthy sleeve, hate eclipsing fear at last. ‘Dead thing of a godless world. Kill us all then. I’ll not die on my knees.’
Headless, the slaver crashed to his knees then flopped forward. By then another had also died and the wind picked up as the slavers shrieked and fled from the assault. The axe tore through them all until their screams were dragged off by the hounds of the wind to the distant arid plains beyond.
At last there were only the slaves and the mouthless man. The cart was a wreck, fit only to be burned. The slaves were quiet as he approached, faces resigned and eyes dead already. They were six, four men and two women – all adult but one younger than the rest. The spark of defiance, of hopes and dreams, was long gone from her face; the slavers had seen to that, but she remained young in years compared to the rest.
The mouthless man took her wrist with surprising care and tears spilled from her face as her skin blackened under his touch. She refused to cry out, however, refused to join the slavers in their consuming terror and in the next moment the pain was gone. His fingers touched only the old pitted iron of her shackles and when he peeled them open like crusts of bread, her hand fell without further harm – lines of darkness etched in her skin.
He did the same with her other hand and ankles, carefully breaking the shackles but marking her each time with his touch. She could barely stand. Her head hung low and she could only lift it enough to see the mouthless man point off into the darkness. She could see nothing that way, the swirling wind and dark concealed all, but with one final effort she swept her ragged hair back and looked up to the stars.
They were not stars she knew. Nothing that glittered in that great span of emptiness was a light to shine on mortal life, but there was a shape she could discern – a straight line cut through by an arc of four frantically glittering stars. Behind them was darkness more profound than any night in her world, the solid, oppressive black of a sealed tomb more terrifying than she could face without tears falling.
The mouthless man drew a line along the constellation and down to the horizon, enough to tell her it was the path home once she escaped the grey rock walls of the gorge. Through the empty night and stinging wind a bridge lay that way, some meaningless distance across lonely plains.
The slavers had spoken of the bridge every night, eager to be across and back in a world of life. A bridge more ancient than any mortal civilisation and vaster than any built under the God’s light. They had entered this place through a narrow pass in a mountain range that was constantly wracked by storms, but the slavers had all said when they returned to the world it would be on the far side; away from any pursuit and across a magnificent bridge.
She stumbled forward, not daring to meet the eyes of the remaining slaves. Two watched her go, the rest seemed to know their fate already and were resigned – they had no need to accuse her with their gaze. As she trudged away she heard nothing, her attention solely on the path ahead. After twenty paces she paused. For a moment it seemed as though she would turn and perhaps see more butchery, perhaps an empty clearing where nothing had ever happened.
Then the moment passed and she walked on, numb to the cold and the death and the hurt the slavers had done t
o her. Then there were only the unfamiliar stars and the seas of distant infinity above – the constellations of bitter tears amid an ocean of deep, malevolent cold.
THE ANGEL WALKED across the dusty ground until it reached the edge of the village. There it stopped and inspected its destination in the sickly haze of dusk. The dust-storm raged all around it, clawing at greyish mottled feathers and long, limp hair, but it paid that no mind as it inspected the few dozen houses ahead. The village was built in the lee of a massive stone bridge – ornate and crumbling, built to be the grand hub of a trading nation. Then the wind had changed so it merely presided over a battered collection of houses on a forgotten road.
A tower stood at the nearer end of the bridge, its windows empty and the great doors that had blocked passage across now hanging drunken and forlorn. Whatever was once inscribed on the great arch of that gate, only the angel could read it anymore and it did not care to lift its head so far. Instead, it watched distant diaspores creep dumbly across the open fields around the village, moving slowly into the wind with occasional green trails of dust streaming out behind them.
All around the village ran a wicker fence to keep the mindless things away. The angel felt something tighten inside it as it watched them. They were not evil, it knew, however lethal their spore-laden gusts might prove to some, but they reminded it of something else. Something far more dangerous, for the shambling things that walked the twilight plains were anathema to it – evil that sickened angels and men alike.
Faintly over the growl of the wind, while great mouths of dust rose up from the parched ground, it heard the moan of the flute reeds below as the wind raced along the great, dark river dividing the village. The mournful sound spurred it back to movement, through the deserted street on this bank and across the bridge towards the only life visible in the village.
The storm had come on in the last hour, no doubt driving the villagers from the streets early and forcing the angel to walk these last miles. On its feet it wore tall riding boots, the dark leather cracked and old but still cared for. Its clothes were similarly unremarkable bar the construction of its jacket that allowed for its wings, but it also wore ornate brass vambraces on each forearm and gauntlets of overlapping scales protected the backs of its hands.
Hanging down its back, between its wings, was a double-handed sword with a long cross-guard, while a small pouch at its waist was its only other possession. As it reached the tavern at the heart of the village, the angel paused. Its left hand rose fractionally, ready to reach for the sword. Something about the desolate streets pricked its instincts, the innate wariness of one who has ambushed and been ambushed many times. Seeing nothing, it eventually relaxed and accepted the streets were truly empty – if for no other reason than mortal common sense in the face of a storm.
It pushed open the doorway of the tavern and stepped inside, surveying the interior for a long while before closing the door again behind. As the racing spirits of the wind faded to nothing, the angel inspected each patron in turn. Lazy, half-drunk eyes rose slowly from a table on the left, a fat grey-whiskered man in a stained uniform slumped over his table. A bottle of wine stood on the table, gripped by one of the old soldier’s hands, while another lay on its side beside a single cup, already finished.
After him, a pair of labourers; mud-stained and watchful as they clutched their clay pint pots. They stared back at the angel only briefly, lowering their eyes as quick as they’d looked up. It could smell their piety, as strong as their fear though their sins were minor. It recognised them as true devotees of the God; faithful servants who nevertheless fear the judgement of wings and flame.
Behind the bar was a tall man of middle years, clean and presentable for his customers in a green tunic and thinning black hair painstakingly teased across his scalp. To the right sat one man and three women, all in long billowing trousers and sober jackets, bent over bowls of soup. Together they glared at the angel, suspicious and hostile, as though reminded of a faith they had rejected, but after a moment’s scrutiny the angel was the one to turn away.
At the bar it placed both gauntleted hands on the stained wooden surface and looked directly into the barkeep’s eyes.
‘Your local spirit.’
The barkeep’s face split into a hesitant grin. ‘On the house if you ask for the holy spirit, friend,’ he said.
The angel regarded him for a long while, long enough for the smile to fade on the other’s face. ‘It is holy?’
‘No, Beast’s Teeth, no! Far from it if I’m honest,’ the man said with a nervous bark of laughter. ‘It’s just . . . well, “an angel walks into a bar . . . ” you know.’
‘Know what?’
‘I, ah . . . nothing. One drink, coming up.’
‘You have nothing holy then?’ the angel persisted.
‘Only infernal shit,’ growled the aging soldier from his table. ‘Man pisses in his beer to make it taste sweeter!’
The angel turned to face the drunk. ‘Does it work?’
The soldier hesitated, assuming he was being mocked for a long while before he realised there was no humour in the angel’s face. He scowled and looked back down to his table.
‘I drink his wine,’ the soldier muttered, ‘make o’ that what you will.’
‘Don’t mind him, sir,’ the barkeep said quickly as he poured the angel a small cup of pungent white liquor. ‘Man’s been drunk and mad for years.’
The angel looked from the drink to the soldier and made no move to touch its cup. ‘To which army do you belong?’
‘Belong?’ coughed the soldier in outrage. ‘I would have you know, my feathered friend, that I command said army! I belong to nothing – it belongs to me!’
‘Where is the rest of your army?’
The soldier looked left and right then squinted over towards the barkeep. Apparently not seeing what he was looking for, he slumped back.
‘He’s round here somewhere.’
‘He?’
The soldier refused to speak further so the angel returned its attention to the barkeep.
‘He?’
‘Yes, sir, there’s only the two of ’em. They invaded a few years back, seventh army of somethin’ or other. Can’t remember what to be honest, never heard of the place.’
‘Two men is not an army,’ the angel pointed out. ‘How did they invade?’
The barkeep looked uncomfortable. ‘Well, they turned up one day – told us they were invading. Pretty much all there was to it. The set fire to a cart on general principle, but someone complained and they said sorry. Helped us put the fire out and everything. The general’s a nice old boy when he’s not drunk. We took pity on ’em and let ’em invade as much as they liked. The other one’s around somewhere, he’s a good worker – earns what his general drinks.’
‘The army of rhetoric!’ the general bellowed without warning, momentarily looking up and directly at the angel. ‘Soldiers of the word.’
‘Rhetoric?’
‘Aye, sir,’ the barkeep supplied. ‘Moss – that’s the other one – he says that’s why there’s only two. Too many voices, distorts the argument or something.’
The angel was quiet for a long while, staring down at its drink. ‘I am looking for someone.’
‘Oh? No strangers here, not since the invasion anyways.’
‘She is here.’
‘The foe!’ yelled the general suddenly, almost struggling to his feet in his animation before drunkenness and fatigue hauled him back. ‘She! She’s the one, she’s our foe – the one who resists my armies.’
‘Foe?’ asked the angel.
The general’s face twisted with drunken slyness. ‘That’s why I sit here night after night – watching and waiting. Know your enemy, reconnoitre and observe. We cannot defeat her, but it is our duty to try.’
‘Small as your army is,’ the angel said, ‘you should be able to defeat one woman.’
The barkeep hesitated. ‘Is there going to be trouble? This is a peaceful vill
age, a quiet place, and we like it that way.’
‘I am not here to kill anyone. She must come with me,’ the angel said.
‘She?’
‘There is one here who has been marked – who bears the touch of the Voiceless.’
‘Oh, yeah. Her.’
‘Her. Where is she?’
The barkeep looked around nervously. ‘Well I don’t rightly know, somewhere round here for sure, but I ain’t certain exactly where.’
The angel put a finger on the bar, pressing it against the wood for a moment before moving it in a circle. Under its touch the wood silently blackened as though touched by a white-hot brand. Over that it inscribed two diagonal lines and them a snake-like pattern. In the wake of its finger a pale light arose, rising up in the air to eye-level before vanishing in a glitter of light.
‘She is behind that wall,’ the angel said, pointing to the back of the bar. ‘She is listening to us right now.’
In response, a door opened at the edge of the bar and a woman entered. She had white hair cut to just above her shoulder and smooth tanned skin, unlike the rest of the bar’s occupants who were pale and black-haired. Her modest dress was faded with sleeves that half covered the sooty smears of black-burnt skin on her wrists, the thin silhouette of fingers clearly imprinted there. On her cheek was a long scar, sign of a cut inflicted years back, but otherwise her appearance bore no trace of anything that might interest an angel of the God.
‘Must come with you, eh?’ she asked coolly. ‘I don’t much like folk saying ‘must’ to me. How about you come up with a better reason than that?’
‘It is vital you come.’
‘Vital? To who? Me? You? The living worlds and all the cold places in between?’
‘Yes.’
She arched an eyebrow. ‘Which one?’
‘Me – and others.’
‘But the survival of the world ain’t at stake?’
The angel frowned and shook its head.
‘Then fuck off back where you came from then,’ the white-haired woman advised.