THE FORSAKEN LAND OF GENèSE | LOST KINGDOM

  600

  “Where are you?!”

  Old masonry groaned in response to the shade’s wrathful booming, dust and cobwebs raining down inside an abandoned home as cracks snaked through the stone. A lone figure crept down the middle of a narrow passageway. It’s burned, poisoned, and rotting head on a vigilant swivel.

  There were buildings on each side, lining a passageway that opened into the city square. Frantic heartbeats intertwined with sharp breaths, accompanied by the aroma leaking out from their adrenal glands.

  “Mmm! There’s nothing like the smell of fear to open the appetite.” The creature licked its lips. “Let me guess. Are you scared that I’ll find out there’s more than just the two of you?”

  There it was.

  The faintest sound of a heartbeat skipped.

  Underneath some wooden furniture nearby, a crouched figure slowly reached for their weapon. The other stilled their hand and motioned for quiet, holding up three fingers, then dropping them one by one.

  Three…

  “You’ve got your buddies searching nearby. While you play cat and mouse to keep this ‘Beauty’ distracted.”

  Two…

  “Oh, well. The more the merrier. I’d never reject a second serving, but I’m afraid you’ll have to wait your turn. I don’t go for the meat until after I’ve had my dessert!”

  One.

  “Now!”

  Two large men, equally disfigured by flame, burst into the open, wielding the tools of their trade.

  The first, a one-eyed titan with grains of ash and sand trapped in his beard, charged while smashing his gauntleted knuckles together.

  The second, an even greater titan in terms of sheer build, stayed behind, unleashing a spread of arrows from his sidearm that outsped his comrade and closed in on the ravenous shade.

  “When you get back to hell, make sure you tell Goody who sent ya!” He reared back his left fist as he closed the distance, investing all his strength into a single blow.

  However…

  It scoffed. “I hate ugly men like you the most.”

  Windowpanes’ bitter chorus—a short outburst as the shadespawn swept her arm. Glass exploded along the stretch, impaling both men with tiny shards.

  “Shit!” Forced to cover his face, the strike sailed over the enemy’s shoulder instead. It caressed his inner arm with frustrating leisure.

  “Wilhelm!”

  Already feeling the poison taking hold, Wilhelm forced his body still and locked the monster in place. “The hell are you waiting around for, Albus? Do it before my fuckin’ arm falls off!”

  An orange giant fell from the nearest rooftop.

  In his right hand, a mace—a buckler on his left.

  “This ends here!”

  The shield doubled, tripled, then quadrupled in size, increasing the pull of gravity, until his shadow was a boulder falling upon the enemy’s head. He held the mace at the ready, perfectly timing his strike.

  But the strike never came.

  The beast kicked his comrade between the legs. It took Wilhelm by the collar and threw him into the next. And for Albus, it struck the metal plating at the center of his shield. For the first time in his life, he experienced utter weightlessness at the hand of the enemy and was sent flying over a wall for a landing who knew how severe.

  “Good try, soldiers. This was the best one yet.” The creature who called itself Beauty brushed her hands as she stepped past the incapacitated men. But as she rounded the corner, she left them with a parting promise: “The next time you dogs interrupt my hunt, I’ll put you down.”

  All of a sudden, it paused, head snapping toward a nearby rooftop.

  Its eyes narrowed in suspicion—then, after a beat, it shrugged it off, going back to that sickening sweetness, calling, “Oh, booooys!”

  It was only after its pungent stench had gone with it that both figures on the rooftop released their breath. Solvanel threw Saint’s arm off his mouth and spat. “I told you to stop doing that.”

  “I did what I had to do, kid. You were practically hyperventilating.”

  “I was not.”

  All that like it was nothing, huh, thought Saint, observing the scene down below through a hole in the wall.

  Both mercenaries groaned as they righted themselves.

  Wilhem sat up first, hurriedly unscrewing a vial of transparent liquid and downing it all in one go. The branching path of decay under the skin receded obediently, his arm returning to its original tan from a patchwork of black and green.

  Wilhelm exhaled, relieved. “Can’t believe the freak was carrying around something that potent.”

  “What I can’t believe is that he gave you six vials of the antidote.”

  The mercenary belly-laughed. “Who says? I’d nicked ‘em off him one time when he’d run off for some late-night cock-wrangling.”

  "Stealing is a clean crime, but it serves the fucker right." The other man held the stump where his right arm used to be, reminiscing on an event both he and Saint Myles would never forget.

  ____________________

  “I can smell his body rotting from the inside!”

  Three days ago, there was a shivering body in his arms.

  After a narrow escape from the corpse, a certain self-proclaimed shepherd went and collapsed in the middle of the chase, panting and burning up under his robes.

  “I wasn’t lying about your looks, little emperor.” Its voice ricocheted off the stone walls, buzzing in his ears like the wings of her subordinates. “Please, don’t make me spoil your body with my rot. It would be such a waste.”

  “Damn it, kid. What’s the matter with you, now?”

  When Saint hauled him up by the collar, his stomach sank. There was a discoloured pattern around Solvanel’s neck: five disjointed lines originating from a spot over the Adam’s apple, resembling strangulation bruises, except they were a thicker black than he remembered.

  The shepherd’s helplessness flashed in his memory—how it had lifted him off the ground during the battle. Goodhall swallowed his poison before being killed. The Black Hand couldn’t kill a dead man, but it was perfectly capable of birthing one in small doses.

  “Oh, priiince.”

  “In here,” struggled the shepherd, before going unresponsive.

  “Tch!” Left without a choice, he ripped a piece of his garment and threw it over the wall, then hooked the boy under the arms and dragged him into the nearest building.

  An ancient bar, by the looks of it, left in an eerie state of abandonment like the household where they left the others—plates on every table, cups filled to the very brim.

  Pulling the boy up to the counter, he could almost hear a drunken debate, as if they’d left the jolly atmosphere behind as well.

  Saint hid the boy underneath the counter, then paced around the room, racking his sometimish brain for a path forward, or better yet, a way out.

  This wasn’t the kind of shadespawn to which he’d grown accustomed, apart from an appetite for human flesh, which, unfortunately, could not be exploited under these circumstances, seeing as it was immune to the strongest poison he’d ever encountered.

  Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  And it proved immune to misdirection as well.

  Its voice circled the building, slithering through the walls like impatient maggots into twitching flesh, promising various vulgar decadences in exchange for providing her a down-on-her-luck maiden with a simple meal.

  “I know you want a piece of this,” the beast taunted from the other side of the stone. “Whichever body part you want. Say the word and it’s yours. For example—would you like some head…”

  A sloppy gurgle followed, wet and delighted.

  “…or the ass?”

  A slap.

  “Teeth…” she sang.

  A gnashing.

  “…or no teeth…”

  Something squished. Something tore.

  A brief pause—like she was listening for their reaction.

  “There,” it said, pleased with itself. “I ripped ’em out.”

  Saint grimaced, swallowing bile and temper in the same motion.

  It wouldn’t be the first time his drunk self shackled the sober him to a clingy broad. But… What the hell did that bastard do to make her obsessed with us?

  They were cornered.

  He touched the boy’s forehead—burning hot.

  Running with a body slung over his shoulder wasn’t an option.

  They’d be caught the second she gave chase. What follows is an agonizing end—ripped apart limb from limb, screaming to high heavens as they watched their own consumption.

  No child deserved to die. But if that was the alternative, then…

  His fingers brushed cold metal on the countertop—a cleaver, left within easy reach, its edge dulled by dust and neglect but still honest about its purpose.

  Maybe it would be better if—

  He shook his head, shaking off a self-inflicted trance.

  The memory of Solvanel letting go of the crook, choosing to be sucked in by the beast when he was in danger, came back to him as he worked, unbuttoning the bloody robes to facilitate his shallow breaths. Surrendering that self-absorbed “destiny” to save Saint’s life.

  A life he had endangered in the first place with that damned paralysis. But still.

  The boy had turned out this way because of him.

  The least he could do was die before him.

  “Come out, handsome. Don’t you trust me?” cooed the creature, its stolen mercenary gait crunching sand as it circled the building.

  It purposefully melded its voice with the mercenary natural voice and his dying gurgles, making it sound like there were many of them. “I wasn’t lying about making you my concubine. Eye-candy isn’t meant for eating.”

  Of course, he chose not to respond, internally debating the severance of a vow he made upon a graveyard at the foot of a mountain range.

  But then—she didn’t either.

  And apart from Solvanel’s breathing, he was left alone with silence, which was—predictably—worse.

  Cleaver in hand, Saint crept toward the nearest window, placing each step as if the floor might tattle. He swallowed his apprehension and leaned in, pressing his face close to the frosted glass, trying to steal a view without giving himself away.

  “Boo!”

  But a little lady’s silhouette got there first—fast enough to make Saint see white. He hit the floor hard, and a glass bottle toppled off the sill with him, shattering. A shard bit into his palm as he tried to catch himself.

  “See?” she said, bright as a child on the other side of the glass. “I’m a fun gal.”

  And by the sound of her, sweet as sunshine, laced with naivete and a hint of noble elegance.

  But when the first red droplet struck the stone by the window, something seized the silhouette from the inside. Its body went slack—then its forehead snapped forward and slammed into the pane.

  BANG!

  Once—followed by silence.

  BANG!

  Again, harder—into silence.

  BANG!

  Harder.

  BANG!

  And Harder.

  BANG!

  And even harder, still.

  And then—

  BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG!

  All in quick succession.

  The glass spiderwebbed, tissue oozing through the cracks, brain matter smeared across the window in a wet, obscene bloom.

  Solvanel groaned.

  Saint held his breath.

  And the beast was panting, exhausted by its attempt at self-control.

  Then it snapped.

  “Open,” she hissed, sweet burned out of the word. “Open, open, open—let me in!”

  Something slammed the stone from the other side. Dust rained from the seams. The whole wall shuddered like it wanted to run.

  “I can smell him,” it went on, voice rising and cracking as hunger took the reins. “I can taste him: His blood. His flesh. His heat. I’m going to peel him. I’m going to eat him while he’s still warm. And I’m going to make him watch himself disappear.”

  Saint’s jaw tightened.

  Before he knew it, he was at the shepherd’s side again, hand finding the cleaver without looking, fingers whitening around the handle.

  Her voice dropped suddenly, intimate, right up against the stone as if her lips were pressed to it. “And when I’m done with him,” she whispered, “I’ll start on you. I’ll take you slow, Saint! I’ll keep the best parts for last.”

  The silence that followed was not mercy.

  “No-no. I’m a woman of my word,” it reassured, clearing the glass. “You’ll be my emperor in the kingdom of death. All you have to do is come outside and present the golden one to me… on a silver platter.”

  The creature harrumphed. “No response? Okay. Guess this is a self-serve kind of party.”

  Its shadow appeared underneath the door, which it ripped away with ease.

  Come face to face, Saint prepared himself for a charge.

  The blow landed on nothing.

  The building shook anyway.

  Saint couldn’t see it.

  Instead, there was a dull, resistant thrum that rippled outward like struck drumskin. Her knuckles stopped short of the threshold by an inch—an inch of… something. An inch of denial, perhaps, and he was only imagining a miracle, but the stench of reality was sweeter than her death, and it was true.

  Her borrowed bones strained with the force she poured into them, pounding away at something that could not be.

  The shadespawn drew back—simmering hatred at the space that wasn’t space—then punched again. The room lurched as if the impact had struck its foundation instead.

  But it wasn’t the barrier that gave.

  The dead man’s wrist bowed at an angle with the sharp, wet popping of his tendons. Skin split along burn scars, each strike chewing a little more of the body’s integrity. Knuckles collapsed. Fingers thickened into a mangled club. The elbow shuddered, then cracked with a sound like dry wood snapping.

  It didn’t notice.

  It did not care.

  By the fourth blow, the forearm was no longer a limb so much as a hinge of meat and splintered bone. By the fifth, she was punching with wreckage. The mercenary’s borrowed frame paid the price for her impatience, until she was looking down at her self-inflicted damage, flexing a battered stump.

  However, her expression was blank, merely deciding what to break next.

  The undead shade raised the mercenary’s head and led that blank glare to the shivering youths, saying a clear-intentioned nothing.

  If they broke a window, she would be on the other side. If they climbed up the chimney, she would be on the roof. If they chose to fight, she was ready.

  This was the only entrance, so it would be their only exit. And she was perfectly content to sit and wait.

  Saint took a deep breath, whispering to himself as he exhaled, “Easy target.”

  He conjured a mental image of a bow: the grip firm in his palm; limbs fit to be carved from only the choicest materials; a string tied to both ends, pulled taut and drawn back to his cheek. Fingers holding steady the weight of decision.

  The image became truer as he held the dead man’s gaze, manifesting weight between his finger joints as he chanted his conclusion: ‘You aim, you loose, you live with it.’