First published on page 65 of Elegant Literature, volume #32.
CW: graphic violence.
I’ll never forget the sight of Daberid lying there, sprawled in the mud. The red pits that had once held his beautiful blue eyes, blind to the smokey sky. The unmistakable, bloody sigils of the Haymza hillmen painted across his body. The deep gash of a serrated knife running from neck to navel. The desecrated remains of our pigs and sheep arrayed around him in a twisted ring. The searing heat and glow of the inferno devouring our home. The smells of burning wood and death, mingling with ash to hang heavy in the air.
I don’t know how long I clutched my husband’s lifeless body, weeping. Long enough for him to grow cold and stiff. Long enough for the sun to rise and wash away the chill of the night. Long enough for our house to burn down to a smouldering, blackened mound.
By the time I finally unwrapped myself from around him, the well of tears behind my eyes had run dry and the paralysing sorrow in my chest had galvanised into seething anger.
“I told you something like this would happen,” I said through a raw throat. “You said yourself that they were angry at you for leaving. We should’ve gone further, across the mountains to the sea…” What was I doing? The dead don’t speak, nor do they listen. Somehow it made me feel better though, lighter, like some piece of Daberid, somewhere, could hear me. “But that doesn’t matter now.” I looked around the bloody ritual circle and traced the sigils painted on his face with my finger. What had they done to him? Was this a sacrifice to the demons the Haymza call gods? A punishment for deserters? “I promise you, I’ll find the people who did this. I’ll avenge you… and…” And what? Daberid was dead, revenge wouldn’t do much for him now.
But revenge was all I had left.
There wasn’t time for a proper burial; the Haymza already had too much of a head start. Instead, I piled wood and straw over him, and with a smouldering piece of wood, set his pyre alight.
Then with little more than the clothes on my back, a skin of water, and a woodworking knife, I set off across the scrubby plain.
For four days I followed their trail south-east, pushing myself to the limits of my endurance, subsisting off roots, and sleeping beneath the stars, plagued by dreams of Daberid’s broken body. Each day, the distant mountains drew nearer, and the flats gradually gave way to a country of steep ridgelines and stoney valleys. Food was scarce and my waterskin grew light.
By the fourth day, cramps of hunger clawed at my gut, and the dry wind had whittled my fury into despair. I was sure I’d die in this barren land.
That evening, I finished the last of my water as the setting sun bathed the cloudless sky in a deep crimson glow. The scant sip did nothing to soothe my cracked throat.
Then as I went to stand, atop the next rise I saw a young man in ragged Haymza leathers, holding a crude spear.
I dropped low. As far as I could tell, he hadn't seen me.
He commanded a view of the entire scree sloped valley between us. Surprise was my only advantage, so I watched and waited.
The sun disappeared below the horizon and the warmth of day fled before the chill of night.
Under the cover of darkness, I crept forward. It took me almost an hour to reach the crest of the far ridge. The watchman was sitting on a boulder to my right, silhouetted against the darkness by the moonlight.
At the base of the next valley, a flickering campfire lit up a small ring of tents.
I sidled up behind the watchmen, slipping my knife from its sheath. He was stooped against his spear, snoring softly.
Then, with Daberid’s face hanging in my mind, I planted my knife in his temple with all my weight behind it. He shuddered and gasped. We toppled over together. He struggled beneath me. I stabbed the side of his head again and he fell still.
Wasting no time, I took the long hunting knife from his belt and descended towards the camp.
I came upon one of the Haymza immediately on reaching the valley’s bottom. He was standing in the darkness, beyond the ring of tents, pissing. I was inches from him when he noticed me. He cried out, stumbling back, spraying me with acrid piss. I threw myself forward, lashing out with the knife. Stabbing his groin, then gut, then throat. He died gurgling blood with his breeches around his knees.
Shouts of alarm exploded from the camp only a few metres away. I fled into the darkness.
Men crowded around the body, bearing torches, and wielding clubs and axes. Three…four…six of them.
I crouched low, shuffling backwards, knife tight in my hand, heart thundering in my ears.
“Gods be cursed,” one cried.
“Something’s killed Hamm.”
“What was it?”
“Mountain bear, must be. They come down to the hill country sometimes. Awful quick and quiet they are.”
“No,” said one with a rasping, yet somehow familiar voice. “This is the work of a blade.”
“Whoever did this can’t have gotten far.”
“Find them,” said the rasping voice.
The others hesitated.
“Now!”
Five of them fanned out, waving torches. The sixth–the raspy voice–lingered for a moment, before returning to the campfire.
I shrunk down and pulled back, letting them spread out.
Their torches would ruin their night-vision, blinding them to anything beyond the reach of their flame’s light.
The first I took quietly, with a knife across his throat and a hand over his mouth.
The second turned and saw me seconds before I struck. He gasped as I put my knife through his eye.
The third tripped, cracking his knee on the rocks. He cried out, and I slid my knife into the back of his neck.
The other two ran towards the sound. I tried to retreat, but they overtook and flanked me, then hesitated, eyes wide.
I was filthy, dishevelled, and covered in the blood of their comrades: the face of some vengeful spirit.
I brandished my knife. The one in front of me recoiled.
Then pain exploded in my temple, my legs buckled, and the ground rushed to embrace me. I blinked, stars swimming in my vision. The man who’d been behind stood over me with his cudgel raised.
“Nothing but a little girl,” he spat. “You’re a coward, Fayn.”
The shame on the other's face hardened into anger. He kicked me. The one with the cudgel struck me again.
“Enough,” called the raspy voice. “Bring her to me.”
The men grumbled under their breaths but obeyed.
Fayn grabbed my arm and dragged me across the uneven ground into the warmth of the campfire, throwing me before the men seated there.
I groaned, blinking up at them. “Daberid?” I croaked.
He was wrapped in a dark cloak, with a pale skeletal face. On his cheeks and forehead were the same symbols I’d seen painted on his face four days ago. He looked just as dead now as he did then, all except his eyes. Those beautiful blue eyes looked down at me with pity.
“Hello, my dear,” he said in that thin, raspy voice. So strange, yet so familiar.
The man seated next to him–with the same deathly visage and facial markings–frowned.
“Daberid? I… What happened? I don’t understand.”
“I’ve gone back to my people.”
“But you died. I saw… I held your body…”
“I did. I left behind my living flesh and renounced all that I was.” He lifted a desiccated hand from a fold within his cloak. “By the Haymza Blood Rites, I am what remains.”
“You share our secrets,” the other skeletal man warned.
Daberid looked at him, then back at me. “You must go now, my dear.”
The other skeletal man gave Daberid a hard look. “She cannot leave here alive. She’s seen too much, knows too much.”
“You said if I returned, she would live.”
“A concession I should never have granted. But it no longer matters. You’re a Deathspeaker now. All that remains to you is your duty to the Haymza.” He slipped a serrated needlelike knife from his cloak and offered it to Daberid. “She is your enemy. Kill her.”
Daberid hesitated.
“If you do not, I will, and I assure you, she will suffer long.”
Daberid took the knife and looked at me. I glared at him.
This skeletal monster was the man I’d loved? The man who'd said he’d loved me?
I spat a wad of bloody phlegm at the ground between us and presented my throat, waiting for his betrayal to be completed.
But instead, Deberid turned on the other skeletal man, plunging the knife into his heart. My captors cried out, surging past me and grabbing Daberid. But it was too late. The skeletal man's chest caved inwards, and his bones crumbled into dust. A vaguely humanoid shaped shadow erupted from his mouth in a violent shriek before evaporating into the darkness.
“What did you do?” Fayn cried.
The other threatened Daberid with his cudgel.
“You can’t! He’s a Deathspeaker.”
“He killed a Deathspeaker!”
Their backs were turned to me.
I pulled my woodworking knife from my belt and threw myself at the one with the cudgel. He half turned as I stabbed him in the cheek, then eye, then temple. He dropped. Fayn grabbed my hair, yanking me off his companion. I twisted, slicing down the length of his forearm. He yelped and let go. I lunged at him, stabbing in a flurry at his collarbone, throat, mouth, and nose. He collapsed with pulses of blood erupting from his face.
Then I turned on Daberid, panting and trembling.
“Why?” I shrieked, spraying him with bloody spittle.
“I was chosen to be a Deathspeaker from birth, as all Deathspeakers are,” he said flatly. “I’d been preparing for it my entire life.”
“You said you loved me.”
“I did. I do. I truly wanted nothing more than to start a new life with you, my love.”
“Don’t call me that!”
“I never wanted to be a Deathspeaker. That’s why I ran away from the Haymza in the first place. Then I met you, and I thought–”
“Why did you go back?”
“They came for me. I had no choice.”
“You always have a choice. We could've fought them… or… or run away… or something.” Tears ran down my cheeks. My stomach roiled with nausea.
“We still can,” he said, rising. He moved like a decrepit old man, his bones creaking with the effort. “You’ve saved me.”
“No,” I whispered, driving my knife into his chest. He collapsed backwards, crumbling into dust. The shadow that escaped him almost smiled at me as it vanished into the night.
I didn’t move until the sun finally rose the next morning. Then when I looked around the valley at the death I’d wrought, at the dust and ash that had once been my husband, I knew that my revenge was complete. But I felt no joy, no satisfaction, only emptiness.
Thank you for your time and attention, it truly is appreciated.
Wow, I did NOT see that twist coming. Well done!
the opening paragraph made a promise and you delivered